How quickly we forget. Was it only a couple of weeks ago that our newspapers were dominated by stories from the Iraqi war zone, our TV news bulletins full of graphic pictures of the war, and our domestic political agenda marginalised by our leaders' grave pronouncements on the progress of the invasion and their shifting justifications for it?
In the beginning, it was exclusively about disarming Saddam Hussein and ridding Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction. By the end, it was all about the overthrow of Saddam and the implementation of "regime change".
Now what? You plough through the paper, almost to the end of the news section, before you find any reference to the postwar situation in Iraq. "People are sick of hearing about Iraq" is the standard explanation for its relegation to a minor spot among all other world news items - and no doubt they are sick of it. "Anyway, the war's over" is the other explanation, and that's true, too.
Isn't that the truth? Humanitarian action just doesn't sell. Hopefully it doesn't sell out.
