Romney's Geography

Syria is Iran’s sole ally in the Arab world and its only connection to the sea. That’s true only if you want to believe it: Iran has its own 1,100-mile coastline on the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman and has no common border with Syria. But this wasn’t Mitt Romney’s first attempt at trying to bluff his way through geography. Just recently, Romney tried to locate a possible Palestinian state on Syria’s border. “Every time you’ve offered an opinion, you’ve been wrong,” Obama quipped during their latest television debate, held in Boca Raton, Florida. The incumbent president conceded absolutely nothing in the foreign policy match and came away the absolute winner of the debate. That was later confirmed by surveys where 48 percent of respondents declared Obama the winner, even though the two contestants agreed on such topics as the necessity of the U.S. remaining in a global leadership position.

But the debates didn’t offer a clear blueprint as to how the election will go; other factors, such as economic and social considerations, will play a more decisive role in the outcome. The final decision, according to many election experts, may well be made by the approximately one million undecided voters, both Democratic and Republican, in the so-called swing states, such as Florida.