The big gaffe: Mitt Romney doesn't know geography

By Michael J.W. Stickings

This wasn't widely discussed last night, but it was a major gaffe, and it's one Romney keeps making:

During the debate [last night], Mitt Romney mentioned that Syria is important because it's Iran's "route to the sea." The thing is, Iran doesn't even border Syria, as you can see our childishly-annotated map above. And Iran already has access to the sea on its southern border.

As confusing as the remark was, though, the Washington Post notes that tonight was hardly the first time Romney has made it, and the Romney campaign explains, "It's generally recognized that Syria offers Iran strategic basing/staging access to the Mediterranean as well as to terrorist proxies in the Levant. This is a large reason why Iran invests so much in Syria." This doesn't change the fact, however, that Iran has a "route to the sea" regardless of Syria. Americans are bad enough at geography already; they don't need a presidential candidate confusing them even more. 

It's actually worse than that. Iran has extensive coastline in the south. What's more, if it wanted to go through Syria, there are a couple of countries in between that don't much care for Iran: Iraq and Turkey.

I'm not saying this was any sort of decisive gaffe, but it reinforced the (truth-based) narrative of Romney as a foreign policy lightweight who's unprepared, unqualified, and unfit for the presidency.

Yes, you should expect better of a presidential candidate, but I'm really not sure you should expect anything else from such an ignorant fool.