George Bush seems to be easing into his new role as GOP war chieftain. He was the star attraction at the Las Vegas gathering of the Republican Jewish Coalition, offering a foreign policy tour d’horizon in answers to questions teed up by Ari Fleischer, his former press secretary. Breaking his vow of silence on Obama, Bush said lifting sanctions in Iran would be a mistake, just like the hollow threats in Syria had been (“you gotta mean it”). The remarks were off the record (of course)—but were leaked (of course) to the New York Times by a “dozen” people in the audience.

Bush seemed to grasp the limits of his rehabilitation. He told the Vegas audience he would stay out of his brother’s quest to become Bush 45, lest it do Jeb more harm than good. Jeb, however, has been sending the opposite message. He recently praised George W. to a roomful of financiers at the Metropolitan Club in Manhattan. In particular, when it comes to Israel, as everything seems to these days, “If you want to know who I listen to for advice, it’s him,” meaning George. A spokesman for Jeb later tightened the screw, calling Bush 43 “the greatest ally to Israel in presidential history,” a lodestar to Jeb, who is likewise committed “to standing with Israel in the face of great threats to their security and our own.” Next came Jeb’s interview with Megyn Kelly, in which he said that, even with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, he’d have invaded Iraq too. Amid stinging criticism—from Laura Ingraham, among others—Jeb has since tried to walk it back, while at the same time accusing his critics of dishonoring the war dead. That tactic, too, seems steeped in the belligerencies of George W. Bush.

And it isn’t just Jeb. One Republican after another has either applauded Bush’s foreign policy or made a point of attacking Obama—and Hillary Clinton—in terms like the ones Bush used in Las Vegas. In remarks last week to the Council on Foreign Relations, Marco Rubio, who has said Bush 43 “did a fantastic job as president over eight years,” called for a new president “who will set forth a doctrine for the exercise of American influence in the world.”