Tom Noonan

In a debate on foreign policy, the candidates do their upmost to avoid a major gaffe.  In last night’s debate, almost all of which focused on the Middle East, Mitt Romney had this to say:

Syria’s an opportunity for us because Syria plays an important role in the Middle East, particularly right now. Syria is Iran’s only ally in the Arab world. It’s their route to the sea. It’s the route for them to arm Hezbollah in Lebanon, which threatens, of course, our ally Israel. And so seeing Syria remove Assad is a very high priority for us.

The only flaw in Romney’s reasoning is that Iran does not border Syria.  Pesky Iraq is in the way.  And Iran does border two seas.

Given the centrality of both Iran and Syria to not only the foreign policy of the United States, and Romney’s heavy reliance on bashing the Obama Administration on both, isn’t this close to a disqualifying gaffe?  (See Ford, Gerald and Poland.)

I picked this up from Andrew Sullivan’s blog who, in turn, credits John Green.