I'd like to play Devil's Advocate for just a minute

[KansDem]

Gov. Romney said Syria is Iran's "route to the sea." Could he have meant the Mediterranean Sea?

Now, hear me out...

Iran could get to the Mediterranean Sea by way of Syria. However, Iran would have to traverse Iraq which might make for a dicey situation. Also, once in Syria, the Israelis might have something to say with Iranians right next door with their hosts and allies, the Syrians.

But, with those concerns aside, Syria could be Iran's "route to the sea" if the Governor was thinking of the Mediterranean Sea.

Perhaps the Governor should call a press conference to clarify this.

[MrScorpio]

1. Let's go all Occam's Razor, shall we?

He's incompetent.

[deaniac21]

10. We have never, in our history,

had a President so successful in foreign policy.

[HopeHoops]

2. Your talking about a guy who couldn't find his asshole in a field full of gopher holes.

I doubt he even knows what continent Syria is in. Hell, Bush thought AFRICA was a country. Why the fuck can't the GOP come up with candidates who know their ass from a hole in the ground?

[Permanut]

3. Or, if you go to Syria from Iran, then take a right..

you can get to the Black Sea. Another right gets you to the Caspian Sea. So there is some clarification needed here.

Edited to say right instead of left.

[naviman]

4. It's like Politifact

"Iran has two ways to the sea, BUT Governor Romney didn't specify which sea, so he MAY have meant the Mediterranean sea."

Half-true.

[Uncle Joe]

5. Sea! I thought he was talking about vitamin C, Iran has a problem with scurvy

and Syria has lots of citrus



Thanks for the thread, KansDem.

[Fresh_Start]

6. how about the suez canal?

Iran has a water route to the suez and the suez connects to the mediterranean.

[Lucinda]

7. Well, whatever he meant, he said the same thing last spring. So it wasn't just a misstatement.

Don't have the link handy, but he has made the same point before.

[LadyHawkAZ]

8. You still have to go through at least one other country

which in context with the "only ally" remark means it's nonsense; at least one other country would also need to be an ally.

However, if you're posturing to be President and badly want to do something like, say, put troops back on the ground in, oh let's say a country rather like Iraq, as a base to attack another country (not that we know anyone who wants to do that...), you could maybe lay groundwork by saying the big country on one side of Iraq only needs to cross Iraq to get to another country who is their ally (and coincidentally not popular in the U.S. right now), and would then have a route to the sea... a statement like that might make sense in that light. But of course none of our candidates would want to do such a thing, now would they?

[rgbecker]

9. Last time Iran tried to go through Iraq it turned into a reenactment of the WW I.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Iran_War

Half a million soldiers dead, many civilians also, as usual in these kind of things.