Math: focus on the Middle East does not equal US foreign policy

I am once again ready to yell and scream about the fucked up politicians and pundits.  But, my throat is already a tad scratchy from all the lecturing earlier this morning!

Google News delivered this LA Times news item, which included the topics that the moderator has listed as the agenda for the third and final presidential "debate":

• America's role in the world
• Our longest war - Afghanistan and Pakistan
• Red Lines - Israel and Iran
• The Changing Middle East and the New Face of Terrorism - I
• The Changing Middle East and the New Face of Terrorism - II
• The Rise of China and Tomorrow's World

Do you see why I wanted to yell and scream?  WTF, right?

Items 3, 4, and 5 are all about the Middle East.  And, in a way, item 2 is related to the Middle East.  For all I know, item 1 will include the Middle East also.  So, the foreign policy debate is all about the Middle East, and a couple of minutes on China.  That does it.

Thankfully my ballot is already out of my hands; else, I might have been tempted to write across the candidates "WTF!"

Like Ahab, we seemed to be plainly obsessed with the Middle East.  Can't we turn our head a tad and look elsewhere, also?

Other than Libya and Egypt, which will be bracketed along with the Asian Middle East, we don't care to know what these two candidates think about Africa?  It is one big continent out there.

Misery loves company; here is Drezner:

Here are the following areas and topics that apparently won't be discussed: 
1)  The eurozone crisis
2)  Latin America
3)  Russia
4)  Africa
5)  Foreign economic policy
6)  India
7)  North Korea
Now I get that some of these topics won't come up in a foreign policy debate that lasts only 90 minutes.  But I'm also thinking that maybe, just maybe, it would be a better foreign policy debate if they actually talked about, you know, SOMETHING OTHER THAN THE MIDDLE EAST!!!!!!
I'm not saying the Middle East isn't important -- we have lost blood and treasure there, some of it very recently.  But I simply do not believe that the region is so important that it should occupy 66.7% of a foreign policy debate.