Opinion piece traces Graham’s foreign policy advocacy from Iraq to Iran
An opinion piece by author Moustafa Bayoumi describes the late Sen. Lindsey Graham’s foreign policy as “hawkish ideology” that left, in Bayoumi’s words, a “legacy of destruction.” The piece, published Tuesday in The Guardian, presents a critical assessment of Graham’s career as tributes from both parties pour in following his death at 71.
Bayoumi, a professor of English at Brooklyn College and author of award-winning books on Arab American identity, writes that “through this thick, bipartisan forest of remembrances” Graham’s concrete legacy — his hawkish foreign policy and devotion to Israel — should not be forgotten. The op-ed serves as a critical counterpoint to statements from figures such as Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who called Graham “a fierce Republican partisan one day and a key bipartisan ally the next.”
Bayoumi describes Graham as “the hawkish senator from South Carolina” and argues that “his fervent desire to project US and Israeli military might across the world, regardless of the cost, is an abject political and ethical failure.” The piece also notes that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly considering traveling to the U.S. for Graham’s funeral, according to the op-ed.
The op-ed traces Graham’s foreign policy advocacy to before his Senate tenure. As a member of the House in 2002, Graham said of Iraq: “We’re looking at going after Saddam Hussein, not to contain him, but to replace him.” The U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003. In a 2010 speech to the Halifax International Security Forum, according to the op-ed, Graham promoted attacking Iran to “neuter” the regime’s ability to wage war, calling for a military scenario that “destroys the ability of the regime to strike back.”
By 2015, Bayoumi writes, Graham was publicly denouncing the Obama administration’s Iran nuclear deal alongside Sens. John McCain and Joseph Lieberman. In 2017, he was a prime backer of moving the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, calling Jerusalem “the undeniable capital of Israel.”
The piece highlights Graham’s response to the Israel-Hamas war that began in 2023. At a Senate appropriations hearing, according to the op-ed, Graham said: “Give Israel what they need to fight the war they can’t afford to lose. This is Hiroshima and Nagasaki on steroids.” When asked if Israel’s war aligned with “Christian values” given the civilian casualties, Bayoumi writes that Graham responded, “I don’t buy that at all,” and said Israel ought to “flatten Gaza.”
In 2025, Bayoumi reports, Graham told the Times of Israel that he wanted the U.S. to participate militarily in Israel’s operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon. “I would like the United States to participate in military operations, in the aerial side, against Hezbollah, if that’s what it takes to knock them out,” Graham said, according to the op-ed. “I want our fingerprints on that.”
The op-ed also notes Graham’s threats against Norway’s sovereign wealth fund after it divested from Caterpillar over ethical concerns about Israeli occupation, and his social media post directed at activist Greta Thunberg, who had joined a humanitarian mission to Gaza: “Hope Greta and her friends can swim!”
Bayoumi writes that Graham lobbied fellow senators on military action against Colombia, citing a Drop Site News report. According to the op-ed, Graham told CBS News: “We’re not going to sit on the sidelines and watch boats full of drugs come to our country. We’re going to blow them up and kill the people that want to poison America.”
The op-ed cites Graham’s own words from a Republican Jewish Coalition summit in October 2025 as a summation of his doctrine: “I feel good about the Republican party. I feel good about where we’re going as a nation. We’re killing all the right people, and we’re cutting your taxes.”
Bayoumi concludes that Graham’s foreign policy is not a doctrine heading in the right direction but “decades of failed foreign policy continuing the same misdeeds at ever increasing rates.”