“Niki, I’m dying. Don’t have much to leave you. Just three envelopes. Open them, one at a time, when you get into big trouble.”

A few years later, first crisis. Khrushchev opens envelope 1: “Blame everything on me. Uncle Joe.”

A few years later, a really big crisis. Opens envelope 2: “Blame everything on me. Again. Good luck, Uncle Joe.”

Third crisis. Opens envelope 3: “Prepare three envelopes.”

In the Barack Obama version, there are 50 or so such blame-Bush free passes before the gig is up. By my calculation, Obama has already burned through a good 49. Is there anything he hasn’t blamed George W. Bush for? The economy, global warming, the credit crisis, Middle East stalemate, the deficit, anti-Americanism abroad — everything but swine flu.

It’s as if Obama’s presidency hasn’t really started. He’s still taking inventory of the Bush years. Just this Monday, he referred to “long years of drift” in Afghanistan in order to, I suppose, explain away his own, well, yearlong drift on Afghanistan.

This compulsion to attack his predecessor is as stale as it is unseemly. Obama was elected a year ago. He became commander in chief two months later. He then solemnly announced his own “comprehensive new strategy” for Afghanistan seven months ago. And it was not an off-the-cuff decision. “My administration has heard from our military commanders, as well as our diplomats,” the president assured us. “We’ve consulted with the Afghan and Pakistani governments, with our partners and our NATO allies, and with other donors and international organizations” and “with members of Congress.”

Obama is obviously unhappy with the path he himself chose in March. Fine. He has every right — indeed duty — to reconsider. But what Obama is reacting to is the failure of his own strategy.

There is nothing new here. The history of both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars is a considered readjustment of policies that have failed. In each war, quick initial low-casualty campaigns toppled enemy governments. In the subsequent occupation stage, two policy choices presented themselves: the light or heavy “footprint.”

In both Iraq and Afghanistan, we initially chose the light footprint. For obvious reasons: less risk and fewer losses for our troops, while reducing the intrusiveness of the occupation and thus the chances of creating an anti-foreigner backlash that would fan an insurgency.

This was the considered judgment of our commanders at the time, most especially Centcom commander (2003-2007) Gen. John Abizaid. And Abizaid was no stranger to the territory. He speaks Arabic and is a scholar of the region. The overriding idea was that the light footprint would minimize local opposition.

It was a perfectly reasonable assumption, but it proved wrong. The strategy failed. Not just because the enemy proved highly resilient but because the allegiance of the population turned out to hinge far less on resentment of foreign intrusiveness (in fact the locals came to hate the insurgents — al-Qaida in Iraq, the Taliban in Afghanistan — far more than us) than on physical insecurity, which made them side with the insurgents out of sheer fear.

What they needed, argued Gen. David Petraeus against much Pentagon brass opposition, was population protection, i.e., a heavy footprint.

In Iraq, the heavy footprint — also known as the surge — dramatically reversed the fortunes of war. In Afghanistan, where it took longer for the Taliban to regroup, the failure of the light footprint did not become evident until more recently when an uneasy stalemate began to deteriorate into steady Taliban advances.

That’s where we are now in Afghanistan. The logic of a true counterinsurgency strategy there is that whatever resentment a troop surge might occasion pales in comparison with the continued demoralization of any potential anti-Taliban elements unless they receive serious and immediate protection from U.S.-NATO forces.

In other words, Obama is facing the same decision on Afghanistan that Bush faced in late 2006 in deciding to surge in Iraq.

In both places, the deterioration of the military situation was not the result of “drift,” but of considered policies that seemed reasonable, cautious and culturally sensitive at the time, but ultimately turned out to be wrong.

Which is evidently what Obama now thinks of the policy choice he made March 27.

He is to be commended for reconsidering. But it is time he acted like a president and decided. Afghanistan is his. He’s used up his envelopes.

While campaigning for president, Barack Obama arguably ran as much against George W. Bush as he did against John McCain.

All across America, Candidate Obama hammered home his message. Mr. McCain represented “the same old Bush-McCain policies that have failed us for the past eight years.” A vote for Mr. McCain was a vote for a “third Bush term.” And far from being a maverick, Mr. McCain was in actuality a Bush “sidekick.”

Today we’re back to the Obama v. Bush storyline. With one twist. In this election cycle, the Democrat tarring his opponent as a “Bush Republican” is running behind in the polls—while the Republican bashing his opponent as an “Obama Democrat” enjoys a lead.

The two races are for the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia, states that Mr. Obama carried in the last election. In New Jersey, the incumbent Democratic governor, Jon Corzine, is running on the same anti-Bush message that worked so well for Democrats last year. But in Virginia, Republican Bob McDonnell has turned the tables by tying his opponent to Barack Obama.

The received wisdom, of course, is that national politics have little to do with the choices voters make at the state and local level. Most press commentary reflects this wisdom, tut-tutting about candidates trying to use presidents to define their opponents. Whether or not the received wisdom is right, the candidates themselves obviously believe otherwise—or they wouldn’t be doing it.

In New Jersey, Republican challenger Chris Christie served as a U.S. attorney under President George W. Bush before receiving his party’s nomination—and Gov. Corzine doesn’t intend to let the voters of blue-state New Jersey forget it.

A cruise through the Corzine campaign Web site shows press releases referring to Mr. Christie as “Bush Republican Chris Christie.” One of many Bush-themed ads carries this tag-line: “Chris Christie—the same Bush policies that got us into this mess.” And at a Corzine rally this past weekend, the Press of Atlantic City reports former Vice President Al Gore revving up the crowd with attacks suggesting that Mr. Christie represents “the George Bush wing of the Republican Party.”

Given the miserable state of New Jersey’s economy, it’s not surprising that Gov. Corzine would like to nationalize this election. In addition to the swipes at Mr. Bush for the state’s woes, the governor has put up billboards showing him standing behind President Obama. Unfortunately the old Bush-bash doesn’t seem to be working: the RealClearPolitics.com poll average shows Mr. Christie up by 6.6 points.

Down in Virginia, meanwhile, it’s the Republican candidate who’s playing presidential tag. Mr. McDonnell surprised many people by trying his Democratic nominee, Creigh Deeds, to Mr. Obama.

Mr. McDonnell has zeroed in on Mr. Obama’s economic agenda and is hanging it around Mr. Deeds’s neck. On issues from health care to card-check legislation for unions to cap and trade, Mr. McDonnell has been painting Mr. Deeds as an Obama tax-and-spend clone.

This one appears to be more successful: the RPC average shows Mr. McDonnell’s lead at 4.4 points. Though this is down from the double-digit advantage Mr. McDonnell held earlier, the decline has little to do with the Obama issue and more to do with an old college thesis that Democrats are using to paint Mr. McDonnell as a religious extremist.

Mr. Deeds’s discomfort shows in the pains he is taking to put some distance between himself and the president. Indeed, at a recent debate sponsored by the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Deeds was asked whether he saw himself as an Obama Democrat. He answered pointedly, “I’m a Creigh Deeds Democrat.”

It’s a tricky dance for all. On the one hand, the White House wants Democrats to win these two governorships. On the other, it doesn’t want to get so close to these two candidates that if they go down in flames, the president gets burned too.

It makes for interesting politics. In Virginia, the White House took a hit when former Democratic Gov. Doug Wilder revealed that he had rejected a personal appeal from Mr. Obama to endorse Mr. Deeds.

And here’s how a recent New York Times piece described Team Obama’s work in New Jersey: “Every TV ad that Mr. Corzine puts on the air is being screened by the president’s team. The governor’s aides are giving daily briefings to the White House. Mr. Obama’s pollsters have taken over for Mr. Corzine’s polling team, and White House operatives are on the ground for everything from internal strategy sessions to obscure pep rallies with Latino supporters.”

Each race is still too close to call. In the end, the experts may well be correct that the presidential factor will have little to do with the outcome of either contest. But with Mr. Obama’s health-care bill stalled, and his popularity declining, you can bet the last thing the administration wants is to wake up the day after the election to stories suggesting that the Obama magic is gone.

Unlike the Obama speech, in 1991 most of the controversy came after, not before, the president’s school appearance. The day after Bush spoke, the Washington Post published a front-page story suggesting the speech was carefully staged for the president’s political benefit. “The White House turned a Northwest Washington junior high classroom into a television studio and its students into props,” the Post reported.

With the Post article in hand, Democrats pounced. “The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students,” said Richard Gephardt, then the House Majority Leader. “And the president should be doing more about education than saying, ‘Lights, camera, action.’”

George H. W. Bush, 41st President of the United States

Democrats did not stop with words. Rep. William Ford, then chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate the cost and legality of Bush’s appearance. On October 17, 1991, Ford summoned then-Education Secretary Lamar Alexander and other top Bush administration officials to testify at a hearing devoted to the speech. “The hearing this morning is to really examine the expenditure of $26,750 of the Department of Education funds to produce and televise an appearance by President Bush at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, DC,” Ford began. “As the chairman of the committee charged with the authorization and implementation of education programs, I am very much interested in the justification, rationale for giving the White House scarce education funds to produce a media event.”

Unfortunately for Ford, the General Accounting Office concluded that the Bush administration had not acted improperly. “The speech itself and the use of the department’s funds to support it, including the cost of the production contract, appear to be legal,” the GAO wrote in a letter to Chairman Ford. “The speech also does not appear to have violated the restrictions on the use of appropriations for publicity and propaganda.”

That didn’t stop Democratic allies from taking their own shots at Bush. The National Education Association denounced the speech, saying it “cannot endorse a president who spends $26,000 of taxpayers’ money on a staged media event at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington, D.C. — while cutting school lunch funds for our neediest youngsters.”

Lost in all the denouncing and investigating was the fact that Bush’s speech itself, like Obama’s today, was entirely unremarkable. “Block out the kids who think it’s not cool to be smart,” the president told students. “If someone goofs off today, are they cool? Are they still cool years from now, when they’re stuck in a dead end job. Don’t let peer pressure stand between you and your dreams.

by Henry Payne

by Amir Taheri

Former President George W. Bush’s policy of encouraging Middle East democratization has just produced spectacular results in the Kuwaiti general election.

In a major victory for the secular reformists over the Islamists, women — four of them — were elected to the 50-seat national parliament for the first time. The Islamists’ share of Sunday’s vote dropped almost 30 percent from the last general election, held just more than a year ago. The radical Muslim Brotherhood lost three of its four seats, while the hard-line Salafis dropped to two from four.

The election of women represents a political earthquake in the Gulf Cooperation Council, a grouping of six oil-rich traditional Arab monarchies. Kuwait has had a parliament on and off since gaining independence in 1960, but the other GCC members entered the era of electoral politics largely due to pressure from the Bush administration. US pressure also played a crucial part in persuading Kuwait’s leaders to enfranchise women for the first time in 2005.

Al-Awadhi: Hails victory for democracy.

The four female parliamentarians all represent the emirate’s educated middle classes. The youngest, Aseel Al-Awadhi, is a US-educated philosophy professor. The best known, Rola Dashti, also a teacher, has campaigned for human rights for years. The third, Dr. Maasoumeh Mubarak, is the first Kuwaiti woman to have served as a Cabinet minister (she was health minister), and the fourth, Salwa al-Jassar, is a leading campaigner for women’s rights. All managed to defeat prominent Islamists and tribal figures in their respective constituencies.

This was the second time Kuwaiti women were allowed to vote in a general election. The first time, their share of the vote was estimated at around 11 percent; this time it was almost 40 percent. The women won their seats largely because a majority of male voters decided to cast ballots for them.

“This was a triumph both for women and for Kuwaiti democracy,” Al-Awadhi says. “Many voters were ready to go beyond the man-woman divide and vote for the candidates they thought most fitted for the job.”

The other big winner was moderate Shiites, who represent a quarter of Kuwait’s population. They were strengthened by the coming to power of moderate Shiite parties in neighboring Iraq.

The increase in voter turnout, to more than 70 percent, refuted any claim that democratization has little support in the Middle East.

In fact, the Kuwaiti election is the third in a year to produce a resounding defeat for Islamists. Last year, Pakistani voters reduced the Islamists’ vote share to three percent from 11 percent. Then, Iraqi voters all but wiped out Islamists in crucial local elections.

The next battleground is Lebanon, where a general election is scheduled for June 7. A coalition of Islamists and Christian Maronites, headed by the Iranian-led Hezbollah, aims to win control of the government in Beirut. It’s opposed by a coalition of pro-Western parties representing Muslims, Christians and Druze communities that support the current government led by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.

On June 12, the Islamic Republic of Iran will hold its own presidential election, although only candidates endorsed by the regime are allowed to stand. In August, it’s Afghanistan’s turn to choose a president. There, too, the fight is between pro-Western modernizers and Iran-backed Islamists.

The biggest battle will come early next year, when Iraq holds its general election.

It’s evident that the greater Middle East is witnessing a major struggle between forces of reform and of reaction. While President Obama appears to have abandoned Bush’s push for regional democratization, America could play a crucial role by continuing to support the forces fighting for it.

Obama would do well to take a closer look at the Kuwaiti election before he goes to Egypt, where he’s expected to announce a return to America’s traditional policy of supporting the Middle East status quo.

by Ed Gamble