• Listen to this segment with Marjorie Cohn and Nabil Al-Tikriti

• Listen to the entire program with Sonali Kolhatkar

President Obama made his case for striking the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) yesterday evening, to the American public, essentially saying he would apply the model of targeted drone strikes in Yemen and Somalia to Northern Iraq and Syria. It was the first time the President openly announced he would strike the nation led by President Bashar Al Assad where a brutal civil war has played out for more than 3 years.

Making clear that he would not seek out Assad’s cooperation, the US will apparently provide aid to those Syrian rebels that are fighting Assad and ISIS while engaging in drone strikes from above. In making such an announcement Obama was essentially capitulating to pressure from some members of Congress and even his former State Secretary Hillary Clinton, who have criticized his reluctance to aid the rebels.

Obama also mentioned several times during his brief 15 minute speech that this new operation was distinct from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The US has already been striking Northern Iraq while aiding Kurdish Peshmerga forces and Iraqi troops on the ground for several weeks.

Today, on the 13th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks, which Obama also invoked in his speech, we’ll examine the legitimacy of this new military operation, and explore the questions of whether it will even work.

GUESTS: Nabil Al-Tikriti, Associate Professor of History at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia, Marjorie Cohn is a Professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, and author of the forthcoming book, Drones, Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, Geopolitical Issues