In this week’s issue, The Economist asserts that US troops must stay in Iraq until their mission is over and the Iraqi government, once satisfied, asks them to leave. However, the cover picture does not show US soldiers gloriously building a democratic and liberal state but an isolated soldier who tries to protect himself behind a heap of sandbags.

So the message should be read the other way around: overcome by Resistance, the US has to retreat; but it cannot do it without losing its credibility unless the US manages to orchestrate, in this sense, a request from the puppet government it entrenched.

In fact, The Economist is preparing the opinion for the retreat plan envisioned by the White House and set forth in the Washington Post by Senator Joseph Biden: A six-months media campaign saying that everything is OK in Iraq and later run away. In the meantime, US soldiers should remain well protected in their bases.