Although authorities have made some inroads in combating militants in North Waziristan, the province bordering Afghanistan, “still a lot needs to be done, and we must be careful not to repeat mistakes of the past and not undermine critical progress we have made as a nation,” Bhutto Zardari said in an invitation-only event hosted by the U.S. Institute of Peace. “My party and I are increasingly concerned that if the current government continues on its path of inaction, we are in danger of reversing many of the gains that have been made.”

“Democracy has … delivered where dictatorship could not or would not.” – Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.

The country’s largest province of Balochistan needs political reconciliation, Sindh Province still has militant sleeper cells and no-go areas, and the Sharif government has yet to arrest any major terrorist figures affiliated with religious groups, Bhutto Zardari said. If international forces withdraw from neighboring Afghanistan, Pakistan could face more instability while facing “pressing challenges” within its own borders, he said.

Bhutto Zardari, 27, is the son of former two-time Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in 2007 as she was campaigning for a return to office. His father is former President Asif Ali Zardari, and his grandfather is Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who served both as president and prime minister of the country before being overthrown by General Zia-ul-Haq in a 1977 coup. Bhutto received a death sentence and was executed in 1979 for charges connected with the murder of a political opponent, an allegation he denied. The execution continues to be controversial today.

Under Bhutto Zardari’s leadership, the Pakistan’s People’s Party is reviving its voter base ahead of the 2018 general elections. Tensions between his party and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party led by Sharif have been rising with disputes over corruption probes, counterterrorism operations and federal power sharing. At the same time, other opposition parties like cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf allege that the Pakistan’s People’s Party and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz are working together to perpetuate status quo politics.

Whatever progress Pakistan has made against extremist ideology is due largely to democracy, he said. The previous government, led by the Pakistan People’s Party, began forging a national consensus on combating extremism in the country with operations against militants in the Swat Valley and South Waziristan, and oversaw the first-ever peaceful transfer of power in the country’s history, he said. That election, in June 2013, brought Sharif back as prime minister for a third time since 1990.

“Democracy has indeed delivered where dictatorship could not or would not,” Bhutto Zardari said.

National Action Plan

The December 2014 attack by militants at a school in Peshawar that killed 132 children further galvanized Pakistani public opinion against the country’s years-long embrace of insurgents as an element of statecraft. In January 2015, the country adopted a 20-point National Action Plan aimed at de-radicalization.

Bhutto Zardari said the Sharif government also is misusing the country’s counterterrorism laws to pursue “a policy of political victimization” against opponents, particularly from parties that back strong counterterrorism and anti-extremism policies.

“Powers granted to the government to tackle terrorism should not be used to silence political dissent,” he said.

Sharif, speaking at USIP in October, said Pakistan has made a “strategic choice to eliminate all terrorists groups” within the country. He noted its military offensive in the region of North Waziristan, a longtime Taliban stronghold on the Afghan border.

Bhutto Zardari also stressed that the military counterterrorism operations in Pakistan’s northwest are important, as is continuing U.S. support to these efforts. He specifically advocated release of more F-16 fighter jets for the Pakistani air force, a platform that remains central to Pakistan’s operations in this campaign but has been blocked in the U.S. Congress.

Beyond military action, Pakistan needs to overhaul its antiquated education system, promote women’s rights, protect minorities and expand employment opportunities for the country’s growing population of young people, Bhutto Zardari said.

The previous government, led by the Pakistan People’s Party, began a series of such reform measures, but the current government has not continued and implemented those plans,“ he said.

“We are in danger of losing serious gains, both operationally as well as the crucial hearts-and-minds equation,” Bhutto Zardari said.

The “failure as a nation to address education, food, clothing and shelter forces the poor to look to ill-equipped madrasas” or religious schools, “to meet their needs, instead of the state,” Bhutto Zardari said.

Critique of the West

The party leader also offered a broad critique of the West’s efforts in countering “religious fascists masquerading as Muslims.”

He said the U.S. and other countries had repeatedly ignored his mother’s warnings not to provide arms and financing for the mujahedeen in the fight against the Soviet Union during its occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by al-Qaida, the U.S. once again overlooked her concern about supporting the military dictatorship of then-President Pervez Musharraf, Bhutto Zardari said.

“Supporting dictatorships on the one hand and promoting democracy on the other is counterproductive” and often “strengthens the terrorists,” he said.

In the future, the U.S. and other western countries must stop supporting non-state actors to fight in distant wars because such forces often metastasize into full-blown militant groups, he said.

Gaps in Western democracies that result in the exclusion of minorities also are “exploited by our opponents,” he said, referring to militants. “We must take responsibility for where we potentially create the vacuum that extremism needs to thrive.”

While the international community is right to use military force to defeat groups like al-Qaida, the Islamic State, Boko Haram and other groups, “we must also seriously engage in the ideological conflict,” because “we cannot kill our way out of this war,” Bhutto Zardari said.