"Syria Is Iran's Route To The Sea" - Mitt Romney

[JaneyVee]

I'm sorry, but last I checked Iran HAS a route to the sea, it's called THE ARABIAN SEA. And of course there is that other little small fact: Iran DOESN'T share a border with Syria.

[seabeyond]

1. go thru northern iraq? how do the kurds like iran? nt

[JaneyVee]

4. And he was dead serious, this wasn't a case of saying the wrong country by accident.

He repeated it twice on the lengthy discussion on Syria. Must have been looking at FOX maps. They're notorious for terrible geography.

[Ilsa]

5. I don't know about the Kurds specifically, but

Iran and Iraq suffered under a decade-long war that killed a million Iranians. I don't think they want to fight, but I doubt they are buds.

[seabeyond]

24. ya, i get that about the war between the two. kurds up north are a tad different. nt

[Hippo_Tron]

10. Actually under the Shiite majority government we gave them, it's entirely possible

Under Saddam, not a chance in hell they would let anything or anybody from Iran cross the border.

[Bucky]

2. I caught that too. But in all fairness, maybe he meant the South China Sea

[Posteritatis]

3. Nah, he clearly meant the Baltic. (nt)

[JaneyVee]

7. South China Sea? That's the Mediterranean.

Or sarcasm.

[eppur_se_muova]

43. *snarf* nt

[hedgehog]

6. What was he talking about; even Iraq has ports on the Arabian Sea,

so it wasn't a slip of the tongue!

[Coyotl]

44. He has his own mental map

[Renew Deal]

8. In fairness, he meant the Caspian Sea

[LAGC]

16. We can't let Iran put subs in the Caspian Sea!

Think of all the international ship transport route commerce that would be at stake!

[jmowreader]

22. You mean, the Caspian Sea Syria is what, 300 miles from?

[dmr]

35. I think Romney was confused about the geography. The Neocons have been wanting to get

access to the Caspian Sea for years now. A lot of black gold in there.

When he talked about this, my first thought was he was really talking about the Caspian Sea. Geography be damned. lol

[Retrograde]

9. Isn't the Persian Gulf around there somewhere?

And isn't Persia an old name for Iran? He really is out of his depth on foreign issues.

[JaneyVee]

13. Yup, Persian Gulf is right there too.

[blue_heron]

11. Romney got geography debate prep from Palin!!!!

[flamingdem]

12. +1 ha ha

[JaneyVee]

15. +2

[gulliver]

28. +1

[tawadi]

31. ROFL

[0rganism]

33. Mitt can see the Golan Heights from one of his porches

at least, once the help finishes pruning the shrubbery.

[L0oniX]

45. LMFAO & welcome to DU

[Generic Other]

14. Picky Picky

He has the old edition of the atlas where the whole area is labeled "European Affiliations."

[JaneyVee]

17. Ha! Along with Czechoslovakia, Soviet Union, & East Germany.

[spanone]

18. picky, picky, picky....bwahahahahahahaa

[Richard D]

19. I think he got Iran and Iraq confused.

Which, which, which, means . . . . ROFLOL!

[L0oniX]

46. Oh no! He would have bombed the wrong country. oooops

[bhikkhu]

20. I was wishing they gave them both a blank map - pop quiz on who could label the most countries

They could have done it right at the beginning, and then discussed the graded tests later. That I'd pay to see!

[ChoppinBroccoli]

21. This Is Already Going Viral On Facebook

[jsmirman]

32. Great graphic

[Hutzpa]

23. lol

saw that when Rachel said it and you can hear the MSNBC panel laughing in the background.

[Blue Idaho]

25. "I'll take Geography for $500 Alex..."

What an asshat.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

26. That was epic, wasn't it?

I sat here with my mouth hanging open going, WTF?

[JaneyVee]

27. It;s that conservative bubble. It's what happens when you get all news & maps from FOX.

What a lightweight, a CON-MAN.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

29. Even if his base has no idea how uneducated a comment that was.

It is going to be everywhere. Everywhere! It's his 'potatoe' moment.

[begin_within]

30. wrong map

[Dakad]

34. Sure, but you should read this ...

[link:http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/11986#.UIYQsbe9Kc0|

[myrna minx]

39. Could you provide a snippet and context for the link? Thanks!

[FVZA_Colonel]

36. The pundits are going to desperately spin that as to reffering to some sort of arms pipeline, or as

a route to attack Israel, or something.

But it was complete and utter garbage from the get-go.

[muriel_volestrangler]

37. This is funny, but also bloody worrying

I mean, the man has really no fucking idea of the basic geography of the Middle East. Here's the full quote, in all its awful ignorance:

Well, let's step back and talk about what's happening in Syria and how important it is. First of all, 30,000 people being killed by their government is a humanitarian disaster. Secondly, Syria is 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. Number two, seeing a — a replacement government being responsible people is critical for us. And finally, we don't want to have military involvement there. We don't want to get drawn into a military conflict.

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=5CD244F1-FC4F-E954-E0552D4AAAEE55CA

Passing swiftly over the 'first of all ... secondly ... number two ... finally' construction, which makes the guy sound like King Arthur in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, we have a man who doesn't know that Syria and Iran don't share a border, but says Iran doesn't have any other Arab allies (and acknowledges Turkey isn't an ally of Iran, a little later), but thinks Syria can be a 'route' to anywhere from Iran. Then he thinks Iran doesn't have access to the sea. Then he says they allow Iran to arm Hezbollah - thus directly contradicting himself on "Syria is Iran's only ally in the Arab world".

And then he claims "We don't want to get drawn into a military conflict", but the very next statement from him is a proposal for extensive organisation by the USA of a heavily-armed anti-Assad force:

And so the right course for us, is working through our partners and with our own resources, to identify responsible parties within Syria, organize them, bring them together in a — in a form of — if not government, a form of — of — of council that can take the lead in Syria. And then make sure they have the arms necessary to defend themselves. We do need to make sure that they don't have arms that get into the — the wrong hands. Those arms could be used to hurt us down the road. We need to make sure as well that we coordinate this effort with our allies, and particularly with — with Israel.

So he wants to form a puppet opposition in Syria, with Israel helping control them. Oh yeah, that's the way to stabilise the Middle East ...

[dipsydoodle]

38. Its the pipeline route to the sea

which is for gas : not oil.

Syria's Pipelineistan war .
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/08/201285133440424621.html

[muriel_volestrangler]

40. That's interesting, though it does of course shoot down his "only Arab ally" claim

because Iraq is a partner in that too.

[dipsydoodle]

41. I lost the plot ages ago

on the subject of exactly which group / country is classed as being Arab and which is not - the expression seems to be used by the media regardless.

The manner in which we use the expression "sea" here probably contributes to the Europe 's media not mentioning the issue of the OP leaving it solely as a US subject of amusement.

The subject of pipeline routes has interest me since the travesty in Azerbaijan's elections. The mother of one my dance friends was one of the election observers who was turfed out and the US said nowt.
Just gotta keep the oil and gas flowing.

[JoePhilly]

42. Apparently one of Mitt's Foreign policy advisers is Sarah Palin.

[L0oniX]

47. Remember Miss Teen S. Carolina ...the thing about maps???

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/people/2007-08-28-miss-south-carolina_N.htm

Q: Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can't locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think this is?

During the pageant: "I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, um, some people out there in our nation don't have maps and, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as, uh, South Africa and, uh, the Iraq and everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, uh, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, should help South Africa and should help Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future."


So uhm ...begs the question ...where did Rmoney get his maps?

[Bucky]

48. Hey! Didn't it occur to you he was talking about a DIFFERENT sea?

He was talking about access to the Sea of Tranquility, where they could threaten Newt's new moon base!

Sea? Right there!