INDIANAPOLIS — As the controversy surrounding President Donald Trump’s decision to kill Iranian Major Gen. Qasem Soleimani with a drone strike escalated, one thought kept coming back to me.
Man, we sure could use Richard Lugar right now.
The steady, stable, rational and reliable qualities of leadership the six-term Republican U.S. senator from Indiana exemplified have disappeared from the national stage. The absence of such qualities is always keenly felt, but particularly at moments such as this one.
This crisis was the kind of situation that called forth the best in Lugar, who died last spring. He had a knack for projecting calm when passions raged at their hottest. This inspired confidence and allowed room and time for clear thinking to prevail.
Some of Lugar’s skill was a product of intellectual discipline. He always did his homework and he always thought about the reaction any action would produce. Others played checkers. He played chess. He never thought only one move ahead.
But even more of it was a question of character.
When I was doing reporting for a documentary on Lugar’s life and career, the people I interviewed used one word again and again.
Trust.
Even people who disagreed with Lugar said they trusted him. They used the same cliché — “his word was his bond” — to demonstrate how, time and again, Lugar could resolve thorny, contentious disputes.
He could pull people of different beliefs together because he didn’t lie to them.
That’s why his absence feels like such a loss at this moment.
Although tensions have cooled for the moment, we have backed closed to an undeclared war with Iran and now, possibly, Iraq that likely will continue to expand. We seem to have no plan for fighting this war, for preparing for the consequences and casualties the war will bring or for how we will end it. We also seem to be arguing that assassination now is a legitimate way for civilized nations to resolve differences.
This is not the way Lugar would have done it.
He knew wars were ridiculously easy to start and devilishly hard to end. He understood that fighting sometimes is unavoidable and even necessary, but fights weren’t won on impulse. They require planning, so he would have taken steps to make sure that our people were as safe as possible before initiating or escalating hostilities. He also would have been careful about doing anything that seemed to surrender the moral high ground.
He would not have shed tears over the death of Soleimani, who had buckets of blood on his hands and a piece of coal where his conscience should have been.
But Lugar would have asked if the cure might be worse than the disease before deciding to kill Soleimani.
That’s because he understood that we live in an imperfect world. For that reason, solutions to our problems on the world stage always have been and always will be imperfect.
But perhaps the biggest hole left by Lugar’s absence is captured in that one word people used to describe his effectiveness.
Trust.
Lugar understood that it was almost impossible to lead a divided nation into and through a war successfully. He would have informed Congress, answered questions and explained to the nation why any steps he took were necessary. He would have understood that wars may be launched by American leaders, but they’re fought by the American people.
Lugar’s way, though, is not Donald Trump’s way.
Where Lugar would have sought to unite us, Trump seeks to divide us. Even issues as basic as the safety and security of the American people he wants to turn into partisan disputes.
Worse, no one — not even the president’s political allies — can believe what he says.
His lack of credibility costs Trump more than he realizes. Even when he is right — and there are times when Donald Trump is right — people doubt him and resist his leadership.
But it also hurts us.
If we are headed into a time of blood and tragedy, we need to be able to count on each other. But we have a president who sows seeds of rancor and distrust at every opportunity. Instead of summoning us to a common cause, he pits us against each other.
Not much good will come of this.
Richard Lugar would have known that.
