The Foreign Service Journal, March 2008

22 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A R C H 2 0 0 8 he conflict in Iraq is multifaceted — alternating between insurgency, civil war, local fac- tional violence and criminality. The insurgency itself is multidimensional, part indigenous resistance to occupation and part resistance by the losing faction in a power struggle. The best way for an outside power to intervene in such a sit- uation is by forcing a settlement to the underlying political issues that are driving the conflict. A second-best solution is to engage local proxies who know the conflict — the terrain, the culture and the cloudy internal politics — and who F O C U S O N I R A Q , F I V E Y E A R S L AT E R A FTER THE S URGE : T OWARD AN 18-S TATE F EDERATION F OUR MAJOR PROPOSALS FOR A WAY FORWARD HAVE BEEN ADVANCED , BUT THEY ALL IGNORE I RAQ ’ S POLITICAL CENTER OF GRAVITY . B Y K EITH W. M INES T Adam Niklewicz