first, bob cusack, the front page of "the hill" a newspaper -- " newspaper. how will the president be defined by what he says tonight? guest: basically he is going to own the afghanistan war. he called this the good war on the campaign trail. he sent 17,000 additional troops to afghanistan. at that time democrats embraced the move. they said that president bush had not paid a lot of attention to afghanistan and that he was focusing too much. just like president bush was defined by his decision to invade iraq, it went well at first and his political capital evaporated as the war went on. this is a key moment in the obama presidency. he spent a lot of time deciding which course to take and he is definitely a war presidents. host: the other had line is that the president must sway doubting democrats. will the president be speaking ahead of this speech? guest: yes, he is going to be meeting with 30 lawmakers before he heads to west point, he will be detailing what he will be saying tonight in the speech. there will be some powerful democrats there, including davi

first, bob cusack, the front page of "the hill" a newspaper -- " newspaper. how will the president be defined by what he says tonight? guest: basically he is going to own the afghanistan war. he called this the good war on the campaign trail. he sent 17,000 additional troops to afghanistan. at that time democrats embraced the move. they said that president bush had not paid a lot of attention to afghanistan and that he was focusing too much. just like president bush was defined by his decision to invade iraq, it went well at first and his political capital evaporated as the war went on. this is a key moment in the obama presidency. he spent a lot of time deciding which course to take and he is definitely a war presidents. host: the other had line is that the president must sway doubting democrats. will the president be speaking ahead of this speech? guest: yes, he is going to be meeting with 30 lawmakers before he heads to west point, he will be detailing what he will be saying tonight in the speech. there will be some powerful democrats there, including davi

host: bob cusack will be with us for the first hour here on "washington journal." we will be back with you in a few minutes. first, chris, independent line. good morning. caller: how are you doing? president obama on his campaign trail said that he would have a clearly defined exit strategy in iraq. but in fact they are really just moving the deck chairs on the titanic into afghanistan. what i find interesting, being a former veteran of the cold war, the tipping point that financially broke the former soviet union was not only the cold war but it was also afghanistan. it was unsustainable. that area of the world is not a troop of friendly geographic area. they are not accustomed to fighting there. we are not. what i want to hear tonight from president obama is basically two things. a clear description of what his measure of success is and how he is going to fund of this war. those are the two things. anything else that he has to put in place is just a smokescreen. host: what do you think of a clear description of success? guest: how do you define it? that is the nu

. >> host: bob cusack of the hill newspaper joins us this board to outline the president's speech. bob, i want to begin, your headline, obama sets war policy. sam youngman writes in the piece that president are by and large defined by the wars they wait. how will the president be defined by what he says tonight? >> guest: he will be fine because he will basically own the afghanistan war. this is a war he calls a good war on the campaign trail. earlier this year in february. president obama said 17000 additional troops to afghanistan, and at that time democrats on capitol hill embraced the move. they said president bush did not pay a lot of attention to afghanistan. he was focusing too much on iraq. now the mood is very different because of the situation in afghanistan has deteriorated. so just like president bush wasn't by and large defined by his decision to invade iraq and start the iraq war, that went well in the beginning of course. and then his political capital evaporated as the war went on. and he left office. but this is a key moment in the obama presidency. he has spent a l