New Delhi, July 12 -- COLUMBIA - His office announced it in three sentences on a Saturday evening, with no cause given and no timeline attached. Lindsey Graham, Republican senator from South Carolina since 2003 and one of the most recognizable advocates for American military power abroad, died Saturday from what his staff described as a "brief and sudden illness." He was 71.

The statement offered nothing further. In three decades of Senate and House service, Graham had never been modest about his positions, but this single concession to brevity arrived without context. His staff did not say where he died or who was present when he passed.

The first formal responses came not from Washington but from Jerusalem. Israeli President Isaac Her...