We read it so you don’t have to

The new issue of the Air Force’s Strategic Studies Quarterly contains an unfortunate article on Iranian support for Iraqi Shiite militias. I turned to it eagerly, because this is a subject that interests me, in part because I think the Iranian effort in Iraq has been a model of a high-impact, low-profile training and advisory mission. I’ve been kind of stewing about it ever since I was in a convoy near Najaf in 2004 that I now believe was tracked and attacked by Iranian special operators. One soldier died and another was wounded.

But as I read, it pretty quickly became apparent to me that the author had nothing to say. Even so, I slogged on, and finally I got to this breathtaking conclusion: 

There are no easy choices, and the road ahead is perilous and uncertain. However, in this high-stakes security environment, America cannot afford to get this wrong and must pursue a thoughtful, purposeful policy guided by theory, history and pragmatic common sense.”

Stop the presses! I think that paragraph-or rather, that car crash of clichés — could apply to just about any foreign policy question any nation at war ever has faced. I mean, when is the road ahead ever safe and certain? And can you imagine calling for a thoughtless strategy unguided by history? (I know, I know — we already tried that in Iraq in 2003.) 

As a taxpayer, I’d like my money back. And I sentence this writer to a remedial reading of George Orwell’s great essay on “Politics and the English Language,” which makes the point that slovenly language leads to foolish thinking.

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