“„A possible path out of the morass, said another American official, would be if Mr. Karzai and the runner-up, Mr. Abdullah, were able to work out a deal under which Mr. Abdullah, a former Afghan foreign minister, would join the new Karzai government.
“„“Everybody’s thinking about this,” the official said. “It would be like getting Hillary Clinton to endorse Obama at the convention. Getting Karzai’s people to work on Abdullah and get him to come into the government is too obvious for people not to be considering it.”