Listening to an Iranian official describe his region as “West Asia” got me wondering if the word “Middle East” is on the outs and why. I suspect Middle East is eurocentric for some reason, but West Asia also preserves Europe as a continent, which is Eurocentric in its own way because Europe is not a continent and never was. If we’re calling anything West Asia, it should be Spain and Portugal.


I call it middle Europe, and I hope it catches on. Europe is really one big continent spreading from Atlantic to Pacific, and it’s time we stopped giving it two different names.
Greater Macedonia?