On NPR this morning: Guy Raz reports on how one adjective can define our future military commitment to Iraq. Not Congress. Not we, the people. An adjective.

“The U.S. Congress has passed three laws that prohibit any U.S. funding for permanent U.S. military installations in Iraq. But according to Kurt Campbell — a top Pentagon official during the 1990s and now the head of the Center for a New American Security — there are also ways around that. “While no one will say anything about permanent bases, [there are] lots of ways to create the potential for bases to be in Iraq for decades to come,” he says. White House and Pentagon lawyers may opt to use adjectives like “enduring” or “continuing” instead of the word “permanent” when they announce the final agreement. And to Campbell, the agreement is an attempt, “in the last days of the Bush administration, to hand a new administration a done deal.”

Listen to the whole thing here.