President Obama does not have a history of working closely with Congress. That is somewhat odd, since he served in Congress before becoming President, but that is the situation. President Obama did not consult Congress before intervening in Libya, and has not seemed particularly interested in consulting Congress on domestic budget issues. So why did he decide he needed to consult Congress on military intervention in Syria? I didn’t say he wasn’t supposed to, I just wondered why he decided to.

John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article today with an interesting theory. Two related stories give us clues.

Yesterday the Daily Caller reported:

Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Forces, Wednesday told the Assembly of Experts — the body that chooses the supreme leader — that “[w]e will support Syria to the end.”

And in an unprecedented statement, a former Iranian official has warned of mass abductions and brutal killings of American citizens around the world and the rape and killing of one of Obama’s daughters should the United States attack Syria.

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal Reported:

The U.S. has intercepted an order from Iran to militants in Iraq to attack the U.S. Embassy and other American interests in Baghdad in the event of a strike on Syria, officials said, amid an expanding array of reprisal threats across the region.

Obviously there is no way to know if Iran can make good on these threats, but it is, nevertheless, chilling.

John Hinderaker at Power Line concludes:

If sending a few cruise missiles into Syria was a symbolic act, without serious consequences, like blowing up an aspirin factory in Sudan, then Obama was happy to go it alone. But if there was a possibility of major blowback, not just from an isolated terrorist or two but coordinated by Tehran, the situation would have seemed entirely different. In the event of a significant retaliatory response, Obama would not want to be out on a limb by himself on Syria. Rather, he would want it to be clear that the Syrian intervention was a decision for which the entire U.S. government was responsible, including some Republicans (like, say, John McCain). This conclusion is even stronger, given the risk that a significant retaliation traceable to Iran would escalate tensions with that nation and could lead to a broader and far more substantial conflict. In this event, Obama most certainly would not want to be seen to have triggered the conflagration by himself.

…What is still an open question, in my mind, is whether Obama really wants Congress to say Yes. Certainly there is reason to believe that he does: his minions lobbied for a favorable vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and he will give a speech on Tuesday that apparently will try to convince voters to support an attack. But he has done almost nothing to lobby House members, and it seems a foregone conclusion that the House will vote No. What will Obama do then? If he cancels the attack, many will conclude that going to Congress was Obama’s way of saying, Let’s call the whole thing off.

I hate to think that President Obama went to Congress to shield himself from the responsibility of an attack on Syria, but based on his past history, that is a strong possibility. I hope we don’t bomb Syria–I am not sure who we would be actually helping if we did–I am not convinced that the rebel forces are our friends.

Prepare for war, but pray for peace.