By Brian Howey

Pharos-Tribune Columnist

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Shortly after Barack Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate in an Illinois landslide in November 2004, he picked up a ringing phone and heard the voice of Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Dick Lugar.

“I called him,” Lugar said Tuesday. “I always intend to recruit the strongest candidates to the Foreign Relations Committee on both sides. He said he was interested, but he wasn’t sure he could get a seat.”

When Sen. Jon Corzine left the Senate for the New Jersey governorship, there were 10 Republicans and eight Democrats. Sen. Obama got the eighth Democratic position and the opportunity to study under the Republican Lugar, one of the truly legendary congressional figures on the world scene.

“I was impressed by his diligence and the quality of his questions,” Lugar said of the freshman Democrat.

In 2005, Lugar invited Obama to journey to Russia to survey weapons of mass destruction and scrapped Soviet nukes. Lugar had been in Algeria and Libya, where he met President Moamar Qaddafi.

“We met up in Moscow where we visited one lab that had biological pathogens,” Lugar said.

Lugar and Obama then went to Perm, the site of a weapons depot where nuclear warheads could be loaded onto flatbed rail cars. It was a sensitive zone since these nukes could be transported. Lugar had struck up a good relationship with the mayor of Perm, who was happy to have the Nunn-Lugar funds there to help secure the nukes.

It was here that Obama found himself in an international controversy.

“We went back to the airport where there was a banquet set up on the third floor,” Lugar recalled. “We were heading to Kiev, and when we went down to the first floor, we found out we weren’t going anywhere. There was a Russian security team there — the Ravens — and a stalemate occurred.

“His staff and my staff called all sorts of Russian officials. In any event, they relented after three or four hours.”

The incident generated headlines around the world, including some no-so-friendly coverage from the Russian press.

Lugar and Obama would go on to survey natural gas pipelines in Azerbajan and Ukraine, the scene of what Lugar has described as “energy terrorism” when the Russians turned them off a year ago. They visited a huge weapons depot out in the Ukraine countryside that had weapons like shoulder-held missiles - the type of devices that are now apparently shooting down U.S. military helicopters in Iraq.

“This was the forerunner to the Lugar-Obama Act that dealt with weapons of all sorts,” Lugar said. “It passed on the final day of the 109th Congress. It’s listed by Barack as one of his substantive accomplishments.”

Has Obama quizzed Lugar on his own presidential campaign waged in 1995-96? “No, he hasn’t,” Lugar said. “We haven’t sat down.”

Lugar, however, appears to have made an impact on Obama. In his presidential announcement speech in Springfield last weekend, Obama made reference to only two political figures: Lincoln and Lugar.

“Politics doesn’t have to divide us on this any more — we can work together to keep our country safe,” Obama said. “I’ve worked with Republican Senator Dick Lugar to pass a law that will secure and destroy some of the world’s deadliest, unguarded weapons. We can work together to track terrorists down with a stronger military. We can tighten the net around their finances, and we can improve our intelligence capabilities. But let us also understand that ultimate victory against our enemies will come only by rebuilding our alliances and exporting those ideals that bring hope and opportunity to millions around the globe.”

There is also Obama’s war stance. In October 2002, without the intelligence Sens. Lugar, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards could access, then-Illinois State Sen. Obama said, “I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.”

When you look at Obama, do you see a future president?

“In fairness to Barack, who are the alternatives?” Lugar asked. “Among Democrats, he’s a very competitive person. I think he has the potential to be a good president.”

Lugar continued: “The first question asked by skeptics is whether he has enough experience. Six years in the Illinois legislature and now three in Congress. Does that prepare someone? Probably not, but the same question could be raised about any of the 20 people running. Look at President Bush, who had six years as an executive as governor of Texas. He hardly had any foreign policy experience, which has become the defining part of his presidency. For better or worse, he was clearly limited.”

Brian Howey, a Peru native, is publisher of The Howey Political Report. He may be reached at www.howeypolitics.com