Lindsey Graham, last great Cold War warrior, dead at 71

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who had just returned from another trip to Ukraine to pledge U.S. assistance to its war with Russia, has died of a "brief and sudden" illness. His office has not released any additional details. He was 71, a young Boomer, and one of the last real Cold War warriors on Capitol Hill.

His death drew swift condolences from President Donald Trump, who called the South Carolina senator “one of the greatest people and Senators I have ever known.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “Lindsey understood that the security of Israel and America are inseparable. Israel has lost one of its greatest friends.”

This was an understatement. Graham could be counted as the greatest champion of Israel and Ukraine, in their respective wars, in American politics. From the beginning, he pushed alongside Netanyahu for war with Iran, a cause for which he was successful, even if the U.S.-Israel military operations in June of last year and February this year failed to deliver decisive victories.

On Ukraine, Graham has for well over a decade promoted aggressive policies against Russia and for an open door for Kyiv into NATO. Before Trump, he would regularly criticize President Barack Obama for being too soft on Russian President Vladimir Putin. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, he went into high gear to help Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, with whatever means necessary.

It's that last inclination — "whatever means necessary" — that has made him a blazing torch for Zelensky and Netanyahu's Likud party, plus hawks and neoconservative figures here Washington, while making him a target of criticism for everyone else. His Manichaean foreign policy — white hats versus black hats — made him an easy proponent of troop escalation in seemingly every conflict the U.S. had a direct or tangential interest in. He supported the Iraq War with gusto. Even after that war was essentially lost and the intervention had created ISIS, he and Sen. John McCain successfully supported putting thousands of American troops back into Iraq and Syria, where they remained for another decade.

In 2017 he said war with North Korea might be inevitable to stop their nuclear program. He was criticized for his callousness. “If thousands die, they’re going to die over there. They’re not going to die here. And [Donald Trump’s] told me that to my face.” Later he said "all the damage" that would come from a conventional war with North Korea "would be worth it in terms of long-term stability and national security."

On Gaza, he once suggested Israel might firebomb the territory like Tokyo and Dresden in World War II to defeat Hamas.

Whether it be pushing for the invocation of Article 5 under myriad circumstances against Russia, or supporting no-fly zones over foreign conflicts that would assuredly draw the U.S. into wars, Graham was ready to fight — and use American forces to do so.

More recently he was criticized for asking South Carolina to send their "sons and daughters" to the Middle East, to "step forward and say this is their fight too." As for Ukrainians, he made waves when he encouraged a lowering of the draft age there so more men could fight and die in that conflict.

Graham, a former JAG officer for the U.S. Air Force and later a member of the South Carolina National Guard, was known for his patriotism and for supporting the troops. Some might say his approach became less "America First" than Ukraine- and Israel-first, given the number of days in the last four years he spent in both capitals supporting their wars and offering American blood and treasure for them.

No doubt the Congress has lost one of its loudest and proudest Cold War warriors — a foreign policy born in an era of Ronald Reagan but for all intents and purposes burning out under George W. Bush and Obama. Graham never gave up the ghost though. For some this was a comfort and inspiration; for others, he was a symbol of everything that went wrong over the last 25 years. Each will honor him their own way, today.