Eideard

Tell Romney that Syria and Iran haven’t a common border

“Maybe one of the few bright spots in the Middle East developments in the last year has been the rising of the people in Syria against [President Bashar al-] Assad. Obviously, as you know, Syria is Iran’s only Arab ally in the region. Syria is the route that allows Iran to supply Hezbollah with weapons in Lebanon. Syria is Iran’s route to the sea.”

— Mitt Romney, question and answer session at AIPAC conference, March 6, 2012

We’ve puzzled over this comment for a while. When the presumptive GOP nominee referred to Syria as Iran’s “route to the sea” during the Arizona GOP debate in February, we figured it was just a slip of the tongue.

But then a reader counted at least five times in which Romney has used this phrase, including in the Feb. 22 debate, at last month’s American Israel Public Affairs Committee annual conference, in a TV interview (MSNBC, Dec. 21), on the radio (Kilmeade & Friends, Feb. 14) and even in a Washington Post interview (Feb. 10).

Considering that Syria shares no border with Iran — Iraq and Turkey are in the way — and that Iran has about 1,500 miles of coastline along the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, leading to the Arabian Sea, the reader wanted to know: What’s Romney talking about?

The man is an ignoranus. He may be bright enough enough get through Harvard Law – twice if I recall correctly – but, maybe Harvard dumbs things down for the children of prominent politicians. Yale certainly gets accused of that often enough [Eh, George W?].

Perhaps someone tried to explain to him how, for example, modern Lebanon is essentially a creation of Colonial France after World War 1. He thought there was a parallel? Or the man is an ignoranus.

Thanks, class warfare exists