This is the kind of thing that makes us progressives think that the media is in the bag for the GOP.  

Had a Democrat made such a fundamental geography mistake, they'd be announcing it HOURLY with a trumpet fanfare.

Mitt Romney didn't forget some little pipsqueak island in an unimportant corner of the world, and he didn't make some slip-of-the-tongue misstatement either, he left out of his geography a nation we just spent most of the last decade, thousands of soldiers, and billions of dollars occupying.  

Now, I know that though the GOP would prefer we all forget about Iraq, it still occupies space between Syria and Iran.