I've heard it said that Democrats start wars but the Republicans are left to wage war and do the clean-up.
Don't know if it is true or not. Just throwing it out there and hoping someone with war knowledge/historical expertise will set me right if I'm wrong.
Not really. Republicans were accused of "isolationism" by Wilsonian Democrats in the first half of the century.
Both political parties have had both intervenionist and anti-interventionist wings throughout their history. Among Democrats, you had both pacifists and Wilsonian activists, and among Republicans, you have/had both Old Right anti-interventionists and war hawks.
The only question is which faction of the party is dominant, when, and for what reason. Unfortunately, usually the way it works is this: if a Democratic President wants to get involved in a war, the Republicans allow the libertarian, anti-interventionist wing to speak because of partisan politics, while Democrats keep their pacifists quiet. Conversely, if a Republican administration starts a war, liberal pacifists become less marginalized by their party elites, not out of principle, but because of party politics.
This whole mess started when the idiot peanut farmer in the WH allowed the Shah of Iran (who BTW had good relations with Israel) to fall.