The first one took place nearly 25 years ago, not long after the horrors of 9/11. Then President George W. Bush just had declared war on terrorism.
Lugar and I were seated next to each other at a dinner. He was then the most respected leader in America regarding foreign policy.
He and his partner, U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Georgia, had negotiated a deal that resulted in the reduction of the former Soviet Union’s stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. Lugar and Nunn thus kept nuclear bombs and other deadly devices capable of killing thousands upon thousands of human beings out of the hands of terrorists.
At the dinner that night, I told Lugar something puzzled me.
I said, following the mass murder of innocent civilians on 9/11, I understood the need to retaliate. What I wondered about was the open-ended nature of our “war on terror.” Where would it end? How would we know we had won, if we did win? What was the exit strategy?
Lugar thought for a long moment.
“That is the $64,000 question,” he said softly, as if he were speaking not to me but himself.
Even though he was supporting Bush and our troops, I could tell even then that Lugar had his doubts about the wisdom of Bush’s plunge into such a conflict.
Lugar knew that wars are much easier to start than they are to end. That’s why they needed to be waged not in anger or by impulse, but with cold calculation and a frank assessment of the costs and risks.
More than a dozen years later, Lugar and I talked over the air on a radio show I hosted. He expressed careful criticism of the Bush-led war that kept Americans serving and exposed in the Middle East for years.
I pushed the point.
I asked him if he thought the war on terror had been a mistake.
“In retrospect, I think it was,” he said.
He said that, while the war was well-intentioned, it had not made the world or Americans safer. Instead, it had radicalized people in a part of the globe that already was a powder keg and inspired fresh terrorist activity.
He added that he and the other leaders who supported the war did not think far enough ahead—did not ponder the consequences of escalating the conflict by arousing the fury of people who lost loved ones as U.S. bombs and missiles exploded in their land.
A few years after that, I talked with Lugar once more.
Trump just had been elected president for the first time. He already was making noises about scrapping the deal that had been negotiated with Iran to end that nation’s development of nuclear weapons.
I asked Lugar if he thought the Iran deal was a good one.
“Yes,” he said.
He added that it wasn’t a perfect deal and that it could be improved over time, but until then it would save lives and make the world safer.
Trump pulled the plug on that deal in 2018. He assured us at the time that he would negotiate a much better deal.
We’re still waiting for that much better deal.
Because he didn’t have a deal, he gave the order to bomb Iran. He did so apparently without consulting Congress or any of our allies.
The last time a U.S. president decided to begin hostilities in the Middle East on impulse without a plan for ending them, we spent thousands of lives and billions of dollars before we were able to get out.
Subsequent presidents prior to Trump were more cautious, in part because they understood what Lugar did—that the ultimate response to conventional attacks, such as bombings, was likely to be asymmetrical. Our military wouldn’t bear the brunt of dealing with such reprisals.
Ordinary civilians targeted by terrorists our attacks enraged would.
I asked Lugar if he thought Trump understood the consequences of ending the Iran deal, if he’d learn that rash acts could have long-lasting costs.
Lugar’s answer was diplomatic but devastating.
“This president,” he said with a small, regretful shake of his head, “is not a student.”
No.
No, he’s not.
