There's no good way out of a bad war
This is why we need solid grounds to go to war, or we should just stay home.
You can't sustain contrived reasons for war for very long, whether it's the Domino Theory or whatever you'd call that recycled dog's breakfast of successive rationalizations for invading Iraq. If the public's not solidly behind it, the politicians inevitably turn the war into a political football, and the result is a mess by anybody's standards.