Will Bashar al Assad be in power one year from now?

[Associate Justice PiT]

That's from the confusion between 'the Arab World' and the Middle East. The latter is basically just the Levant, Mesopotamia, Anatolia and the Armenian Highlands (both of which have a slightly confused status but lets ignore that), the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt and Persia. You would describe Tunisia as being part of the Mahgreb or North Africa.

That is the way we use it in Scandinavia and Germany, but it seems it is generally used in a much broader way in English.

Confusion with "the Arab world" does not explain the inclusion of Afghanistan.

     I doubt most Americans realize that the Afghans are not Arabic.

[politicus]

That's from the confusion between 'the Arab World' and the Middle East. The latter is basically just the Levant, Mesopotamia, Anatolia and the Armenian Highlands (both of which have a slightly confused status but lets ignore that), the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt and Persia. You would describe Tunisia as being part of the Mahgreb or North Africa.

That is the way we use it in Scandinavia and Germany, but it seems it is generally used in a much broader way in English.

Confusion with "the Arab world" does not explain the inclusion of Afghanistan.

I doubt most Americans realize that the Afghans are not Arabic.

The map is from Britannica..

[Filuwaúrdjan]

but it seems it is generally used in a much broader way in English.

Not really, though (due to North Africa not really having much of a presence in Anglophone societies) people do slip up.

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I think that's just idiocy.

[The Mikado]

Afghanistan is in a sort of overlap between Central Asia and South Asia (culturally closer to the latter except in its northern fringe, geographically closer to the former). It is in no way Middle Eastern (perhaps the far-western bits around Herat which are basically Greater Persia).

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Afghanistan has a rising cricket team - this put them in South Asia imo.

[politicus]

Well, not all Anglophones agree that Afghanistan isn't part of the Middle East. Let me recite the words of the great Oklahoman poet Toby Keith:

"I'm just a middle-aged, Middle Eastern camel-herdin' man. I got a two-bedroom cave here in northern Afghanistan…"

[MaxQue]

Toby Keith is obviously a reference and an authority on geopolitics and geography.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

While there are valid reasons not to include Afghanistan in the Middle East, saying it's because they aren't Arabs isn't one of them, unless you also want to argue Iran isn't in the Middle East either.