SOME of the Middle Eastern states and groups have had to live with war or warlike conditions since the establishment of Israel in 1948. The parties involved have not always been anxious to have peace except on their own terms, which have often amounted to the other side’s virtual annihilation. No wonder then that efforts of external peacemakers have got nowhere. Conflict in the region is not limited to the Arabs and Israelis. Arabs are fighting Arabs in Iraq, and Muslims are fighting Muslims in Afghanistan.

General Musharraf believes that if he and heads of other Muslim states sit down and think together, they can come up with a way to resolve these conflicts. He has talked with some Arab rulers and, more recently, with the president of Indonesia and the prime minister of Malaysia, who have endorsed his quest for a new peace initiative.

Mr Khurshid Kasuri, his foreign minister, said in Kuala Lumpur that the general knew what he wanted but that he would not spell out its specifics prematurely. At another point in the same interview, he said one could not know what the ingredients of a “fresh initiative” would be until after leaders of the nations involved had met and formulated a plan of action.

An editorial in this newspaper (February 2, 2007) commended General Musharraf’s initiative. Non-Arab Muslim states, it said, had a “crucial role” to play in resolving the Middle East conflict. Pakistan could make a significant contribution, since it has had informal contacts with Israel for more than 20 years.

One might also recall the well-publicised handshake between the Pakistani and Israeli foreign ministers in Istanbul on September 1, 2005. Writing in the same issue of Dawn, Mr Ayaz Amir, on the other hand, was inclined to dismiss Musharraf’s project as a case of misplaced priorities. The general, he argued, should put his own house in order before going out to “fix” world problems.

We should not accept either of these assessments without further scrutiny. Let us begin with the conflict in Palestine. The Palestinians want all, or most, of their territories, which Israel has taken by force and colonised, back and they want Jewish settlements built on these territories vacated. They also want an independent, sovereign state of their own. Israel, on its part, wants to retain all or most of the occupied territories, and it does not want a viable, let alone sovereign, Palestinian state.

At this point, it would be appropriate to ask if General Musharraf, President Yudhoyono (Indonesia), and Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi (Malaysia) know what concessions from each side will bring peace to Palestine. I doubt it. Even more important is the fact that none of them is known to have any leverage to speak of with either Hamas or the PLO leaders in Palestine.

They may say to the Palestinians: “you have waged conflict with Israel for almost 60 years; it has brought you grievous losses and no gains. How about pursuing peace with a greater seriousness of purpose and willingness to bargain?” They are likely to say: “We are the victims of indiscriminate aggression, robbed, plundered, hurt and bleeding. Why did you come to us? Go, preach peace to the Israelis.”

What can Musharraf and company say to the Israeli leaders? The proposition that peace is, in itself, desirable may not carry a whole lot of weight with them. They have profited immensely from armed conflict with their Arab neighbours and the Palestinians. At the present time, they do have formal peace with Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey. They may develop an interest in peace with other Arab/Muslim states if that does not require them to give up the Palestinian territories they hold.

Peace could bring both sides substantial advantages, such as trade, investments, collaboration in the areas of education, technology, and modernisation. In this connection it is noteworthy that Israel’s own resources do not suffice to maintain its statehood. It cannot get along without massive American government and private assistance. But there is no danger of this assistance drying up in the foreseeable future. Moreover, the majority of Israeli politicians and their constituents are not inclined to surrender the occupied territories in the hope of gaining durable peace.

What can General Musharraf and the other peacemakers offer Israel that will induce it to relent? They may say they will try to persuade the Arab/Muslim states to recognise Israel and establish normal relations with it. This attempt will run into difficulties.

First, normalisation of relations with Israel is not a vital interest of any of these states. Life goes on, and so do the affairs of state, even without it. Second, even if their governments are persuaded to think that something might be gained from normalising relations with Israel, public opinion in most of them is likely to oppose it unless Israel, as a precondition, has agreed to a settlement satisfactory to the Palestinians.

It should be noted also that Pakistan, being a recipient of a variety of advantages from Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, is in no position to put any pressure on their governments. Nor does it have any influence to speak of in Egypt or any of the North African Arab states.

Israel may also want to know what Musharraf can do about entities, other than the Palestinians, who make trouble for it. The Iranian president wants to remove Israel from the face of the earth. I doubt that Musharraf can change his mind merely by suggesting the possibility that if the Arab/Muslim states befriend Israel, it may soften its attitude towards the Palestinians. Hezbollah in Lebanon will also not respond affirmatively to his overtures.

In sum, there is little that Musharraf, Badawi, Yudhoyono, and any others they are able to recruit can do to bring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to an end on terms that are even halfway decent, just and honourable.

Let us now see what these gentlemen can do in Iraq. There is first the matter of resistance to the American military occupation of that country, which results in several American and scores (sometimes even hundreds) of Iraqi casualties every day. It was a mistake for the United States to invade and occupy Iraq.

But what is done is done and it is now beyond recall. American forces are trapped there and the policymakers in Washington see no honourable way of leaving the Iraqis to their own devices. They are in that most unenviable position in which they are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t, withdraw.

What can Musharraf and his associates do to change this ugly situation? One can be sure that the insurgents will wave them away if they say that the Americans mean well and that their continued presence in the country will do wonders for it. Nor can they offer President Bush and other American leaders a worthwhile alternative to their current engagement. It is true that Mr Bush regularly designates Pakistan as a crucial ally in the war against terrorism, and he calls Musharraf a personal friend. But none of this means that Musharraf is in a position to alter the course of American policy.

The second dimension of the turmoil in Iraq is the Shia-Sunni conflict. That it has been created by the Americans is an unseemly fabrication, an excuse for running away from reality. This conflict has been latent, and at times open, for nearly all of Muslim history. For more than 1,300 years, from the beginning of Umayyad rule in 661 until the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2002, a Sunni minority has ruled Iraq, dominated and, for extended periods of time, oppressed and persecuted its Shia majority. Following the collapse and disintegration of Saddam’s governing apparatus, the Shia have, for the first time in history, found an opportunity to assert the logic of their numbers and seized it.

This turn of events has put the Sunnis, long accustomed to the exercise of ruling authority, in a state of shock; one might even say trauma. They cannot accept this drastic diminution of their status without a fight, and they are fighting to reverse the new tide of history. They may eventually accept the “ground realities”, but that lies in some remote future; it is not here and now.

I can think of nothing that Musharraf, Badawi, and Yudhoyono can do or say that will change the dispositions and resolves of the Iraqi Shias and Sunnis. They are likely to regard these gentlemen as meddlers, who do not understand their affairs and cannot empathise with their aspirations. Iran and Saudi Arabia may have influence with the warring parties in Iraq. But they are mutually antagonistic, often arrayed on opposite sides.

The Saudis, being Wahabis for the most part, have no use for the Shias. They are apprehensive of their own Shias who form a majority in the region where Saudi oil deposits are located. In fashioning their approach to the Shia-Sunni conflict in Iraq, neither they nor the Iranians will be guided by any considerations that Musharraf and others may try to press upon them.

Is General Musharraf unaware that his enterprise is inefficacious, something like a wild goose chase? I don’t think so. He said more than once in Kuala Lumpur that its success was uncertain. One may then wonder why he has been going hither, thither, and yonder to discuss it with other Muslim rulers. I am not sure why he is doing all this.

There is the possibility that his quest for peace in the Middle East is mainly intended to score points for his standing in domestic politics in an election year. He will not be able to show substantive results of this project any time soon. Whether the advocacy of peace, and the appearance of activity in its pursuit, will do him a whole lot of good at home remains to be seen.

The writer is a visiting professor at the Lahore School of Economics for the spring semester.
Email: anwarhs@lahoreschool.edu.pk

IN August 2002, the chief executive (now the president) issued an order repealing a law dating back to 1861 to redefine the role of the police and to make it “accountable to the people”. Citizens have hardly noticed a change in the role of the police or in the matter of its accountability. Noteworthy, however, is the increase in expenditure on the force. This has more than doubled in the last four years.

In Punjab the expenditure has gone up from nine billion rupees to Rs21 billion (it will increase to Rs28 billion by the end of this year) and in Sindh from eight billion rupees to Rs16 billion. Expenditure incurred on the deployment of paramilitary forces like the Rangers and the Frontier Constabulary in support of the police, which is large and recurring, is additional. It would be of interest to recall that in the turbulent seventies, expenditure on the Sindh police was less than a billion rupees.

A sad aspect of this comparison is that despite the doubling of expenditure since the promulgation of the new Order, the crime rate has not gone down. In fact, it has been going up while public order is on the decline. It can be argued that had the colonial law and system of policing not been reformed the situation would have become even worse. But hardly anyone feels confident about arguing on these lines, not even the masterminds of the new system or the police commanders.

If they did they would find no takers for their point of view.In four years, the Police Order 2002, (since made into an act of parliament) has been amended more often than was the colonial law in a century. The public safety commissions and ombudsmen from the district to the national level (these institutions were intended to be the crux of the new policing system) have either not been created or remain moribund after being established.

On the ground, the police continue to function, by and large, as they did under the 1861 law. They answer neither the “democratic aspirations of the people” nor has the force become more “professional and service-oriented” as the law had envisaged. In fact, the actual trend is to the contrary.

Though the most crucial provisions of the Police Order have not been implemented and those that have provide little relief, it would be imprudent to amend it wholesale or to enact an altogether new law or to revert to the law of the colonial era. In fact, improvement is needed in policing standards and in the structure of the force rather than in the law. The hare-brained ideas related to the new police scheme may remain on the statute books unimplemented as they have been for the last four years but the provisions that have politicised the police commanders and impaired the performance of the force need to be expunged. The foremost in this category is the role assigned to the district nazim.

Under Section 33 of the Order, the head of the district police is responsible to the nazim for all police functions. The nazim is also required to report annually on the police officer’s performance which will have a vital bearing on his service career. The Order goes on to say that in case of a difference of opinion between the nazim and the government, i.e. the minister, on any matter concerning the police, the decision of the government shall prevail. The police officer thus would find himself between a rock (the nazim) and a hard place (the minister). That is the position of the law. The reality of power will assert itself on the ground.

The involvement of police officers in party politics is further aggravated by the Local Government Ordinance which requires the nazims to “perform functions relating to law and order”. Since the nazims now are all politicians ranking high in the hierarchy of one or the other party, it is hard to imagine them acting impartially in the political fray, especially during the election campaign. The minister, one or more of different political persuasions, could be pulling in the opposite direction. For career police officers, it would be a catch-22 situation.

The competing political interests in the forthcoming elections must not involve police officers who have to be on the scene only to ensure that the campaign and polls are conducted in an orderly manner. Every nazim, on the other hand, will be siding with his party. It would, therefore, be advisable to exclude him from the law and order apparatus before the election campaign begins. It would be unrealistic to expect the police officers to be neutral when the nazims are not.

The pivot in the provincial police’s organisational structure is the police station, and the station house officer (SHO) is the kingpin of the force. The police station is the only place where a worried citizen gets protection but where he can also get tortured. Most police stations in the country are no better than dungeons and the SHO has the image more of a savage than of a guardian of law. He is ill-paid and ranks way below in the hierarchy though he is the only one who delivers and can also oppress or extort. The layers of officials above him are there only to supervise or to inspect his work.

Out of the billions of rupees that have been given to the police very little of the amount has reached the place where it is most needed, that is the police station. Nor has the status of the SHO risen nor is it likely to rise in the future. The solution lies in reducing the number of police stations but giving them mobility and striking power. A foot constable (we have tens of thousands of them) has no place in a crime milieu in which the criminals fly high and ride fast.

If the vehicles and other equipment procured for crime control and investigation were to be used for the stated purpose alone and not be diverted to escort or guard officials and a variety of VIPs, Karachi, for instance, could make do with one police station in each town reducing their number from the present 101 to just 18.

Headed by an officer of the level of superintendent, all functions relating to crime prevention and detection, investigation, prosecution and traffic control, now split and scattered, could then be pooled at the police station. The citizens thus would find whatever remedy they seek at one place.

The greatest shortcoming of our policing system all along has been that it had had too many masters at high places but only one workhorse or beast of burden – the SHO. The law of 2002 has only added to the number of masters. A common citizen is lucky if he gets access to the police station. The masters are beyond his reach. The need is to raise the capability of the police station and the status and powers of the officer heading it.