Lindsey Graham tributes from Israel and Ukraine point to complicated, often bloody legacy | US politics

It has emerged that one of the first praises for US senator Lindsey Graham, who died on Saturday aged 71, came from Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right provocateur who recently sparked widespread outrage by sharing footage of himself mocking loyalist activists trying to get to Gaza with aid.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not far behind, calling Graham “a great friend of Israel and a dear friend of mine,” followed closely by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. who described it as “a true defender of freedom and the values ​​that make our world safer.”

While praise was pouring in from NATO allies and Taiwan, Graham, one of the 100 senators in Washington, said: had a global reach Very few people can match. He traveled the world advocating a strong U.S. foreign policy, frequently visited American troops stationed abroad, and was vital in shaping Donald Trump’s worldview. But his legacy was complex and often bloody.

“There is no doubt that Lindsey Graham was a central figure in Republican foreign policy circles and played an important role in broader debates about America’s place in the world” says Brett BruenA former director of global affairs in Barack Obama’s White House. “He certainly resembled his old friend John McCain, and in many ways he inherited the mantle, but without the same moral clarity that McCain clung to despite Trump’s upheaval of Republican politics.”

Graham, a former air force attorney and member of the South Carolina Air National Guard, was a prominent neoconservative hawk whose political career came full circle during two decades in the Middle East. She was a cheerleader for George W. Bush’s war in Iraq in 2003. It had a significant impact on Trump’s war in Iran in 2026.

Graham lasted only a month in the Senate after a spell in the House; In 2003, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell made a presentation to the United Nations security council arguing that Saddam Hussein in Iraq was secretly pursuing weapons of mass destruction.

Graham was vocally supportive, stating: “Iraq’s response that ‘We have no weapons of mass destruction’ is a blatant lie. I hope the world will stand behind President Bush to ensure this man cannot continue his weapons program. He must be disarmed or replaced.”

Hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives, weapons of mass destruction were not found. Bush’s decision to go to war described by An influential think tank as the worst foreign policy mistake in US history.

Undeterred, Graham argued that Iran was exploiting the Iraq conflict to strengthen its position in the Middle East. For years he supported policies aimed at isolating Iran and limiting its missile and nuclear programs. He opposed Obama’s nuclear deal and in 2015 was called Preemptive military action that would turn the Iranian military into a “husk of its former self.”

Those instincts often seemed incompatible with Trump’s “America first” rhetoric, which cast doubt on overseas military adventures. But when Trump’s presidential candidacy became inevitable in 2016, Graham steadily transformed. fierce enemy close allyMy personal friend and golf partner. He was a frequent visitor to the White House and an advisor to Trump on foreign affairs, particularly Iran, Israel and Ukraine.

Adam Schiff, Democratic senator from California said NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday: “Many of us considered her the Trump whisperer. If we wanted to know what the president was thinking or how he might act on an issue, you’d go to Lindsey to discuss it.”

Graham applauded Trump’s decision to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities last year. Along with Netanyahu, he was arguably one of the most persuasive voices urging Trump to go to war in February, despite reported reservations by J.D. Vance and others.

To talk Policy Graham told the news site in March that he had been urging the president for months to view the overthrow of Iran’s leadership as a decisive achievement for a second term, comparing it to the fall of the Berlin Wall. He continued to try to impress her after the conflict began and made it clear that he had no regrets.

Graham published on social media Last month: “For those who say Iran is stronger than ever, that is an insult to the American military and a misleading notion because Iran’s economy is in shambles.”

It was a stance that reassured more traditional Republican foreign policy hawks but caused unrest in the “make America great again” movement, which backed Trump in part because of his promise to keep the United States out of “endless wars” like the quagmire in Iraq.

Iranian state television announced Graham’s death during the live broadcast was expressed in openly hostile terms. “I congratulate the great nation of Iran on sending warmonger and anti-Iran US senator Lindsey Graham to hell,” the anchor said.

Graham’s political ties to the Ronald Reagan-era Republican party are also evident in his staunch support of Ukraine in its long and bitter war against Vladimir Putin. Just before his death, he visited Ukraine for the 10th time since the war began. announced An agreement was reached with the Trump administration on Friday to move forward on a package of sanctions against Russia.

On Sunday, Finnish president Alexander Stubb called Graham “a personal friend. Supporter of @NATO and Ukraine. A Transatlantician. A friend of Finland.” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he was “a true friend and partner of Germany in the transatlantic alliance. We stood side by side for more than forty years.”

But Graham remained loyal to the point of sycophancy to Trump, who praised Putin as a “strong leader” and “very smart” and memorably rebuked Zelenskyy in his first Oval Office meeting last year. The senator’s sudden death could remove control over Trump’s impulses and cut off access to foreign leaders who have come to depend on him as an interlocutor.

Bruen, who is now president of the public relations agency Global Situation RoomHe said: “In recent years, she has seemed to wield enormous influence over Donald Trump, mostly by trying to pull him back from his philandering and somewhat misguided dealings with dictators like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un. It makes you wonder whether her departure will remove some of the guardrails from some of the last-minute interventions that seem to prevent us from making bad deals with the Kremlin.”

Graham’s uncompromising support for Israel and his hawkish approach have sparked outrage elsewhere in the Middle East. He publicly expressed his support for Israel’s devastating war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip following the attack on Israel by Hamas-led militants on October 7, 2023.

In May 2024, after Washington paused some military aid to Israel, he called on then-defense secretary Lloyd Austin to “give Israel what it needs to fight the war.” He likened the threat facing Israel to “Hiroshima and Nagasaki on steroids”. HE Published on X “Palestinians in Gaza are the most radical population on the planet, taught from birth to hate Jews” later that year.

In April, Graham was among the guests at the British embassy garden party in Washington, attended by King Charles and Queen Camilla. He proved friendly and talkative when approached by the Guardian and said he had spoken to Trump earlier that day. Clearly unburdened by doubts about US interventions in Venezuela and Iran, he also gleefully made a prediction: Cuba will be next.