When Lindsey Graham died suddenly on July 11 from a heart ailment at age 71, Washington lost one of its last unreconstructed foreign policy hawks, a Republican who believed the United States should be the world’s policeman, who pushed for intervention in every conflict, and who lobbied relentlessly for Israel and Ukraine. His funeral on Tuesday at the Washington National Cathedral became something more than a memorial. It became a summit.
President Donald Trump attended, along with Vice President JD Vance and much of the Republican establishment. So did Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. They came to honor a man who, as Trump said in a Fox News interview earlier that day, was a great politician and a great gentleman , someone who could produce a Democrat when Trump needed one in an emergency.
But the alliances Graham spent his career championing have changed shape since his death. Trump and Netanyahu’s relationship is under visible strain. Reports of angry confrontations between the two men have circulated for weeks. Trump’s war aims in Iran are narrower than Netanyahu’s , the US president wants nuclear denial and open shipping lanes, while the Israeli prime minister has made no secret of wanting to see the regime in Tehran fall. Graham himself was caught on documentary footage in February urging Netanyahu to broaden the war into Lebanon, which the US has so far declined to join.
Zelenskiy’s presence was equally loaded. His last meeting with Trump in the Oval Office, in February 2025, ended with the Ukrainian president being publicly upbraided for not wearing a suit. Relations have remained strained since, even as Ukraine has gained the upper hand in its war against Russia. On the sidelines of the funeral, Zelenskiy hoped for a more constructive discussion. The Wall Street Journal reported that the two discussed efforts to revive a peace deal with Russia, though details were scarce.
Vance, speaking at the Capitol memorial before the cathedral service, described Graham as a true American original , a man of swashbuckling stature who entered the Senate with his suit jacket open and became impossible not to like.
But the eulogies could not mask the reality of the moment. Three leaders whose countries are entangled in two overlapping wars , Iran and Ukraine , met in the pews of a cathedral to bury a man who helped arm both fronts. Graham was working on a new Russia sanctions bill when he met Zelenskiy in Kyiv earlier this month. He died shortly after returning to Washington.
The funeral was a reminder of how much of the current crisis bears Graham’s fingerprints , and how little clarity there is about where any of it leads.