WASHINGTON, June 7 -- He called it a "completion." Not a deal, not a ceasefire, not a withdrawal. Three months into the most sustained American military engagement in the Middle East since Iraq, President Donald Trump told NBC News on Sunday that US forces would remain in the region until something undefined - but final - had been achieved.

"Maybe we may use them. It's unlikely, but I think we'll keep them there until such time as we have a completion," Trump said in a prerecorded interview with NBC's Meet the Press that aired Sunday morning. The interview was taped Friday at Custer Farms in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, and conducted by moderator Kristen Welker.

The word was chosen carefully, or perhaps not carefully enough. "Completion" ...