host: danielle pletka, iran is involved now. is that ok?st: there is a lot of debate on that in washington. on one side, people support you in the people that they believe need to be killed. brian and i have talked about this often, and i am sure he has something valuable to add. the first is that there is this perception, this growing problem in the middle east. it is personified by iran versus turkey, saudi arabia whatever it is allowing iran to come in and do this does not help bridge that divide. it also gives iran an enormous amount of power, power that the iraqi government expresses profound concern about. the battle of tikrit that you mentioned would not have been won if they did not have the support on the ground. that is not good for us. guest: i don't disagree with much of that, but we have to go back to 2002 2003, when iran and iraq were contained by a strategy of the u.s. at that point. one of the strategic consequences of the iraq war in 2003 unfortunately was that we eliminated -- i am glad saddam hussein was gone, but we open

here with two different perspectives, danielle pletka, from the american enterprise institute, along with brian katulis, senior fellow at centers for american progress. danielle, your overall thoughts on what the president sent up to congress recently, this draft of an aumf, authorization for military force. guest: on the one hand, he was a good thing that the president went forward and sent up a draft. there was the eight on whether it was a good thing to do that or not. -- there was a debate on whether it was a good thing to do or not. in many ways, it was a lose-lose , because there are some things republicans hate in it, and some things the democrats hate. even the limited goals that the president himself has put in there, it limits things for three years, which is a little bit unrealistic, although perhaps excusable. it has other limitations on the president about the kind of force he can use on the ground and yet it has no limitations on the limitations of using that force. with the kind of environment in washington, that is a pretty bad recipe for progress. host: what do you li

host: and i think danielle pletka, you touched on that a little bit. guest: we need -- he referred to i hope me, and not to you, as a young lady. because i have not heard that in a while. [laughter] but more seriously, i don't think there's any question that relationship have -- relationships have deteriorated between the various parties in washington. and i think that action happened under the bush administration, as well. i think particularly secretary of defense rumsfeld and others had terrible terrible relations with capitol hill that were very corrosive. i think that has only continued and deepened under president obama. not just between the republicans on the hill and the democrats and the white house, but between democrats on the hill and democrats in the white house. and i also think the caller does make a fair point about leadership. one thing, i have lots and lots of negative things to say about church bush and his leadership and his management, but the one thing i'll say is that he spent a lot of time getting up and talking to the public abo

we will talk to danielle pletka and brain katulis. washington journal is live every day at 7 a.m. eastern. >> here are some of the featured programs for this weekend. saturday starting at 1 p.m. c-span2's book tv is live at the university of arizona for the tucson festival of books. featuring discussion on race and politics, the civil war and call-ins throughout the day. sunday at 1:00, we continue our coverage of the festival with panels on the obama administration, the future of politics and the issue of concussions in football. saturday morning at 9:00 eastern on c-span3, we are live from longwood university in farmville, virginia. talking about the closing weeks of the civil war in 1855. sunday morning, we continue our live coverage of the seminar with remarks on thise surrender of the confederacy. find our complete television schedule at www.c-span.org. let us know what you think about the programs you are watching. call us, e-mail us or send us a tweet. joined the c-span conversation. like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. >> the supreme court hear oral argument of wheth