Opinion: How best to get things done in Afghanistan and elsewhere

PARIS, France — If Hillary Clinton’s Kabul visit was what it seems, hard talk with the door closed, it was just what a superpower should do in Afghanistan. And elsewhere.

She told reporters Hamid Karzai is not doing nearly enough against corruption, and Washington wants “measurable results.” With luck, she told him a lot more.

Economists use moral suasion to convince people in private to do the right thing. They outline benefits and allude only subtly to the .45 in their briefcases.

In statecraft, this works far better than public posturing. Carrots are fine for rabbits or horses. Sticks, even if nuclear-tipped, get proud people’s backs up.

Leaders at the top of unruly societies get there by mastering Machiavelli and the Wizard of Oz. Their power base is illusory, based on fear of other alternatives.

They might need strong outside support yet they cannot be seen to be subservient.

Karzai is way up on the humanity scale from, say, Saddam Hussein or Kim Jong Il. Iran and Zimbabwe pose different challenges. Yet the principle is the same.

Take Saddam. Had successive U.S. administrations privately delivered a clear, constant message after Iraqi troops fled Kuwait in 1991, we’d have a better world.

Instead, Saddam laughed off public threats while growing fat on the U.N. Oil for Food program that enriched many of the same Americans and Europeans who denounced him.

No fool, Saddam knew he had to dismantle his egregious biological and chemical arsenal while curbing his thirst for nukes. Still, he desperately needed his badass image.

Since no one made good on dire public threats, he assumed they were empty enough to ignore.

When George W. Bush pushed him into schoolyard chest bumping with a whole world watching, he chose spectacular suicide, condemning Iraq to the fate that followed.

In Afghanistan, the game is different, a free-for-all with elements of chicken and dodge ball. And Barack Obama, happily enough, understands it is no schoolyard.

For a more apt metaphor, think sinking ship. No one can float a hull with rotted timbers. It is a pointless chase after mutinous crewmembers and overturned deckchairs.

Karzai must be persuaded, behind those closed doors, to get serious about systemic corruption, widening income disparities and private armies that tax and terrorize.

He can hardly fix it all, but he must start at the top with his own family and inner circle. A serious, sustained effort — a real one — at least sets the tone.

Effective steps against corruption demand equal energy to address the causes.

NATO commanders condone poppy farming; full stomachs help win those hearts and minds. But, apart from what that heroin does elsewhere, this is the heart of corruption.

When the Taliban thought suppressing drug traffic might win them outside support, they eradicated most Afghan poppy fields over a single season.

The good guys can’t do it the Taliban way: murdering farmers who refuse to comply. But crop substitution and social programs can work if they are taken seriously.

Realists argue, correctly, that this is an awfully big job. But it is less big than reducing carbon dioxide, phasing out oil or combating killer diseases.

All are possible but only if world leaders can see beyond their own narrow interests to what matters to a habitable planet.

In Afghanistan, and in any single state, nothing substantial is possible without a genuine commitment by those in charge, elected or otherwise.

Karzai took the controls, first with a courageous motorcycle ride into Taliban badlands and then with an artful rise via foreign allies and dubious elections.

Now he must face down the conflicting interests that make it ungovernable, forging workable compromises and holding people to them.

Afghanistan is worth trying to save, not only for all those tough-minded, suffering people who live there, but also because we all pay as it descends further into chaos.

NATO can train Afghan police even if some go rogue and murder their trainers. It can help an army, weeding out bad seeds and backing decent officers who inspire others.

In the end, however, it is up to Afghans.

Mao Zedong was wrong about power coming out of the barrel of a gun. It does at any given moment. But no one has enough guns to make that power stick for long.

It is simply not possible to deliver democracy or remake human society by helicopter gunship. These are long-haul internal processes. Outsiders can only help.

Moral suasion is a stretch for America, given recent history. But it is the best approach: private hard talk with Karzai and other leaders who matter.

If arguments are convincingly forceful, and that .45 in the briefcase is fully loaded, NATO allies might be able to help Afghanistan save itself.