the peak (Iraq troop levels have never gone a third that high). Then
conservative Nixon started drawing down the troop count and finally
declared victory and pulled out. Rah-rah lefties.

That's not quite how it worked. Nixon quietly (some would say
surreptitiously) escalated the war IIRC, but the American public had
given up on Viet Nam (me included at the time - we didn't trust that
the leadership was telling us the truth) and Nixon was politically
forced at home and at the Paris peace talks to end the war.
Republicans of that era were almost as much spendthrifts as the
Democrats. Nixon was a hawk, but I never thought of him as a fiscal
conservative like Reagan. Oy. NO metal content.

RWL