Riding on the wave of New Labour, Blair transformed the UK into one of the most robust economies in Europe, and struck a partnership with Clinton in following the Third Way philosophy. He embraced globalization with full faith and ushered in the 21st century with grand dreams, and has through his charisma won the 2012 Olympic Games to be hosted in London.

In foreign policy, Tony Blair showed a statesman’s leadership in the Kosovo crisis. He also showed his political mettle and tenacity in Africa by committing British troops to end the civil war in Sierra Leone and by his relentless campaign to end Africa’s poverty.

But -- and history only records the buts -- in a strange twist of fate Blair’s falling action began with his subservient relationship with George W. Bush. Although the relationship started with Blair’s honest and obligatory role of supporting a friend in need after 9/11, the charismatic, visionary and commanding politician all of a sudden turned into a meek, lost and docile servant of Bush. He followed Bush into disaster after disaster until he met his Waterloo in Iraq. And with Bush humiliating him at every meeting by rejecting his proposals and advice on Iraq and the Middle East, Blair lost touch with political realism and with the British people, who became disgusted as they watched their leader fittingly become “Bush’s Poodle.” In the Middle East, Blair was seen as a clown for saying things that he knew he couldn’t back up with action. His hands were tied by Washington.

As the war in Iraq gathered steam, Blair watched some of his ablest ministers such as Robin Cook and Clare Short resign in protest. But he reached his lowest political point with the death of Dr. David Kelly, who was the probable source of a BBC story that accused the British government of ‘sexing up’ evidence of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction to justify war.

Tony Blair won his second term amid great voter indifference described as the worst voter turnout for a British general election since the end of WWI.

Shunned by the people, deserted by many of his most loyal party members and bankrupt of any political initiative, Blair had seen his endgame and was convinced that any more hanging around would only hurt his party’s chances in future elections. The real blow, however, came in the latest local elections held in early May, in which the Labour Party received their worst defeat in Scotland in years. With such devastating humiliation, Blair has found the decency to resign before given the boot like Margaret Thatcher.

To assess how Blair will be remembered depends on which side of the fence the observer stands. While historians may treat him kindly in the long term, it is a politicians’ greatest falls and not his greatest leaps that usually linger in popular memory in the short term. And unfortunately Blair’s cartoonist figure as Bush’s Poodle will be a difficult image to beat.