Where is the Middle East?

from George FriedmanEditor, This Week in Geopolitics, Mauldin News Ltr:

Out of sheer necessity, the name “Middle East” was invented at the start of the 20th century. The need for a name was anchored in a geographic puzzle: how to distinguish the region between the Near East and the Far East. Depending on whom you ask, credit for coining the term “Middle East” goes to either the American military or the British government. Either way, the area’s new identity was determined by outsiders.The term Near East originally referred to the Ottoman Empire, while the Far East meant East Asia. When the Ottoman Empire disintegrated, it was vital to find a new term for the area that is today Turkey. The name “middle east” was popularized in 1902 by US Naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan in an article he authored that ran in the National Review. It has since entered the global lexicon as a term that everyone knows yet few can quite define.Today, the region that stretches from the eastern Mediterranean to the Iran-Afghan border, and from Turkey south (to include the entire Arabian Peninsula) is what we know as the Middle East.