Political lives almost always end in failure, or at least anticlimax, but Lindsey Graham went to his reward while in the midst of achieving his goals. Indeed, even the timing of his death might advance one of the causes dearest to him. He had just returned from a visit to Kyiv and his fellow advocates of greater US involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war have questioned whether he might not have been murdered by Vladimir Putin. The evidence is against that but the South Carolina senator certainly had deadly enemies: he was high on Iran’s hit-list as well. For decades, he’d called for the use of force against the ayatollahs’ regime and he lived to see that call answered.

The Republican aviary still has many other hawks. But can any take Graham’s place?

The Republican aviary still has many other hawks. But can any take Graham’s place?

Graham might also be fortunate in not having to see what happens next. Americans have not been pleased with the way their wars have ended for most of the past 80 years. After World War Two, only the 1991 Persian Gulf War felt like a clean win – yet even that was tarnished by the illnesses afflicting our troops afterward and the bitter experience of the second war with Iraq that dragged on for a decade. President Trump is conducting the Iran War very differently from the ground wars of the two Bushes, but Tehran is so far not interested in giving peace a chance. Senator Graham would happily accept that. His eagerness for a fight wasn’t in the least diminished by the outcomes of the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The same couldn’t be said about the morale of the American people or the Republican party.

When John McCain died in 2018, Graham was ready to take his place as the GOP’s foremost advocate for foreign intervention. And if he was less distinguished than the former prisoner of war, Graham was a more politically effective advocate. Like McCain, he had been a NeverTrumper. But while McCain’s stubbornness rankled Trump to the very end – and beyond, with Trump continuing to lambaste the Arizona Republican after his death – Graham learnt to ingratiate himself with the President and win his trust. He wasn’t the only hawk to do so but he appeared to be the most successful. Graham earned himself the obloquy of much of the Washington establishment, including former friends, for cultivating Trump in this way. But his strategy paid off for the foreign-policy causes he cared about most.

The Republican aviary still has many other hawks. But can any take Graham’s place, the way he took – and even surpassed – McCain’s? Another South Carolinian, Nikki Haley, might be eager to take Graham’s place in the party as well as in the Senate. Yet there’s little chance Governor Henry McMaster will appoint her to fill the few months remaining on Graham’s term or that the state’s voters will nominate her to take Graham’s place on the November ballot. Her relationship with Trump is also more like McCain’s........

© The Spectator