Carville to Consult for Karzai's Rival

James Carville, a Democratic strategist who ran Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, is advising Afghan president Hamid Karzai's challenger, former Afghan finance minister Ashraf Ghani. Ghani received a PhD from Columbia University and worked at the World Bank.

Carville says he did not discuss the Afghan elections with former president Clinton or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and that his role as adviser to Ghani should not be read as U.S. approval for a new Afghan leader. Carville, who has worked on campaigns in 18 countries, said:

I don’t think anybody would veto me doing this. I’ve worked in Israel when Bill Clinton was president. It’s what I do.