address there and that unusual meeting, let's bring in two former presidential speesh writers, david fromme who wrote for george w. bush and senior editor at "the atlantic" and dave kusnet. david, let me start with you, the president and ban ki-moon both emphasizing this is unusual. there's only been six times that the security council has met at this high level. of course, the choreography is already done, the alliance already set to pass this resolution. and yet as you well known, presidential words matter a great deal, particularly as we go into bomb a new country here. what did you make of the line the president just walked in speaking to those allies? >> well, the president is evidently trying to do is to -- after the fact. the bombs has already begun, build a network of legal authority. there is a question on what basis is the united states now at war in syria? remember, a year ago when the president was proposing to bomb on the other side of this war, he insisted he needed congressional permission. this time he doesn't have that permission so he is saying that he's allowed to do so u

we have experts with us, david fromme was a speechwriter for president bush and david kusnet.hank you for joining us. you have sat in that chair, and you have written the axis of evil speech, george bush gave in to 2002. you have done some soul searching about that speech. what should president obama and speechwriters be most worried about? >> they should be most worried about if they're going to -- last week president obama talked in estonia. that was a powerful speech. the president had something to say that was credible, that was important. the president is now about to urge the united states into going to war, exactly the opposite side of the war he advocated going into exactly a year ago. back then we were going to go war against assad. now we're going to war with assad. back then we needed congressional authority. now we don't. the president has to make sense of that. unlike estonia, i fear his message this time is not credible. >> david kusnet, we know we'll be hearing about the strategy the president has tonight. but let's talk about the threat. in polls, americans fee

and david fromm tweeted this out last night. who are these forces on the ground the president cited? in syria, it's hezbollah, and iran's revolutionary guards that are fighting isis. are these our two options here? and if that's the case, don't we have every reason to be skeptical? >> well, i think that you have the same problem on both sides of the border. in each case, the structures we may have been able to rely upon that are indigenous among the sunni communities in both of these countries have been worn down or allowed to atrophy in the case of iraq to a state they don't exist anymore. and in syria, to whatever set of processes have unfolded here over the last three years, the moderate opposition we would hope to work with is really in the act of being reconstructed. a similar thing has to happen in iraq. it's a reconstruction of awakening type sunni groups, probably the most encouraging thing i heard in the speech was a reference to a structural national guard-like element that would institutionalize that kind of local def

david fromm writing we're taking our eye off the ball and really assad is the bigger threat to u.s.terests than isis and that while isis is obviously a terrible thing we should want top contain going at war in syria is likely to put us in a worse outcome. i'm not sure that is true, but i'm unsure enough that we want to get in on either side of this. >> we##h;Ñ appreciate it. >>> up next, expecting the unexpected. just who are we arming in syria. plus, another day, another nfl star arrested in connection with domestic violence. what is going on here? and is it nature of the game? is it the culture around the star mentality? we'll get into that and much more. the other big stories of the day, as well. "the cycle" rolls on, thursday, september 18th. check out all these airline seats. lots of them, right? but when you try to get one by using your travel rewards card miles... those seats mysteriously vanish. why? all the flights you want are blacked out. or they hit you up for some outrageous number of miles. switch to the venture card from capital one. with venture, use your miles on an