As they did on the battlefield, the Taliban outlasted the U.S. at the

Marc Grossman, a veteran U.S. diplomat who had left the Foreign Service, was asked to return to lead the diplomatic effort. Within weeks after Clinton’s speech, he was in Doha, the Qatar capital, shaking hands with and sitting across a table from Tayyab Agha, head of the political wing of the Taliban, and a close aide to its reclusive leader, Mohammad Omar.