The current catch phrase that the Rovians want to pin on the tails of donkeys concerning what should be done about Iraq is that the Democrats are the party of "cut and run". History tells a little different story when it comes to slicing the line and letting the big ones get away.
Working backwards in time, let's take a look at which party's presidents severed the cord before the job was done:
During the Kosovo War President Clinton committed US air support to the NATO effort to remove Slobodan Milosevic from power during the active ethnic cleansing of Albanians. While Clinton stayed the course until ground forces kept the peace, it was the Republicans who first of all didn't want any part of the conflict, and then took many opportunities to ramp up the cut and run rhetoric as aptly pointed out by Addison.
It was after the first
Gulf War that George H. W. Bush assembled a true coalition of regional support, and rolled the forces all the way up to Saddam Hussein's palace door. With calls from many to finish the job it was none other than Defense Secretary Dick Cheney who summarized the reasons why cut and run became their preferred course of action:
"I would guess if we had gone in there, I would still have forces in Baghdad today. We'd be running the country. We would not have been able to get everybody out and bring everybody home.
And the final point that I think needs to be made is this question of casualties. I don't think you could have done all of that without significant additional U.S. casualties, and while everybody was tremendously impressed with the low cost of the (1991) conflict, for the 146 Americans who were killed in action and for their families, it wasn't a cheap war.
And the question in my mind is, how many additional American casualties is Saddam (Hussein) worth? And the answer is, not that damned many. So, I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the President made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq."
It was also George H. W. Bush who abandoned the Mujahideen after they forced the Russians to cut and run from Afghanistan after a decade long occupation. It actually began at the end of the Reagan years, but this support cutting and running led directly to the rise of the Taliban Movement and possibly the eventual September 11th attacks.
A little more well known cut and run incident by Ronald Reagan was when he ordered the US Marines out of Beirut, Lebanon after the bombing of a barracks there. This shouldn't surprise anyone because it's alleged in the October Surprise someone affiliated with the Reagan campaign against Jimmy Carter negotiated with the Iranians to not release American hostages until after the election. To show his appreciation for the inauguration day release Reagan struck up relations with that country's ideological leaders.
In Vietnam, it was Gerald Ford that said enough was enough and used cut and run to put an end to that conflict. Who from that era could forget the vision of people hanging off of the last choppers trying to get out with their lives. Richard Nixon actually started the draw downs, but why he wasn't around to cut and run himself is a chapter in itself on how Republicans like to control elections.
For the Korean conflict it was Dwight D. Eisenhower who used cut and run as his campaign strategy to get elected. Sort of a strange tack for a World War II hero, which I might add was won by Democrat Harry Truman.
In fact, you'd have to go all the way back to Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War to find a "stay the course" Republican president. Since then even Abe wouldn't recognize his party that is now for such things as the Southern Strategy and most recently not renewing the Voting Rights Act that helps to guarantee that minority votes count. Today's Republicans have even cut and run from their once glorious roots. Maybe they should change their party name to the Be-seeing-yas.