changing the calculation by the moment. what we have heard is from senior officials. yesterday we saw the secretary of state, tony blinken on the sunday shows, saw jake sullivan today doing a lot of morning television shows, all making the same point. one, yes, conceding the speed and scale of the taliban takeover of afghanistan surprised them, but two, that they really were left with very few palatable political options here in terms of the u.s. strategy going forward in afghanistan, because they inherited a deal as they put it from the trump administration with the taliban that laid ground work for the u.s. departure. here is jake sullivan explaining what it would have meant to reverse that agreement. >> i think the worst case scenario for the united states would be a circumstance in which we were adding back in thousands and thousands of troops to fight and die in a civil war in afghanistan when the afghan army wasn't prepared to fight itself. that was the alternative choice