In an interesting article in The Guardian entitled 'Don't mention the war', John Harris argues that bashing Bush and Blair's involvement and conduct in Iraq has so dominated political debate that it threatens to consume traditional left-right ideological discourse. More for the humanitarian left than the isolationalist right, criticism of the Iraq war has recently implied that these ideologies are centred around negative criticism of the Blair-Bush axis (of feeble), rather than any distinct doctrine of their own, such as an increase in the welfare state. John Harris thus asserts that "so desperate is the desire to link Iraq to just about everything that you occasionally end up with something close to arrant nonsense".

That Iraq is a major issue which deserves coverage is undoubted. John Simpson reported that around fifty people are being killed every day in Iraq, and suggested that this has become "background noise" in today's press. There is indeed insufficient media attention on the true situation on the ground in Iraq. More focus should also be given to the diplomatic situation in the wider Middle East, particularly Iraq-Iran relations. But, as John Harris contends, to use Iraq as a universal beating-stick is misleading, and to see many a debate on the BBC's Question Time revert back to the "illegality of the war" (and other such clichés) tiresome, to say the least.