I think that Republicans wanted him to do more although I don't believe that they wanted him to be able to look good doing it. Someone posted some old threads from that time (post pulled and account suspended and I have no idea why) and there were more than a few Freepers who were accusing Bill of starting wars to cover his scandals much like leftists accused W of starting wars for ulterior motives.
Clinton clearly could have done more during his term to get OBL and put the fear of God into Muslim countries to show them we will not be uckfayed with.
I didn't trust him to lead us in any sustained campaign either, suspecting he's just throwing up a front to ward off impeachment, but it seemed Republicans publicly backed him when he took action and didn't go abroad and denounce him like the Rats have done to W. But he had no credibility to me and I'd have advised my sons not to enlist to serve in anything that he sponsored at that time. Which is why he should have resigned - he was self-impaired.
"Someone posted some old threads from that time (post pulled and account suspended and I have no idea why) and there were more than a few Freepers who were accusing Bill of starting wars to cover his scandals much like leftists accused W of starting wars for ulterior motives."
While the peanut gallery did indeed go after Clinton for wagging-the-dog, most of the elected Republican politicians didn't engage in this same debate. In fact, people like McCain actually chastized Clinton for taking troops off the table...and not being tough enough.
Clinton created his own problems...not because of what he did, but because of when he did it. His attacks were curiously timed at the very moments he was having a domestic crisis. The cruise-missile attack on Afghanistan and Sudan occured the week that Monica was making her apparence before the Grand Jury.
As some in the military even noted, Clinton refused to follow up on other leads, thus Clinton's declared war on terror lasted as long as Monica's apparence before the jury. This was such a spontaneuous attack that many in the Joint Chiefs had no idea it was coming--and even Janet Reno questioned the legality of such an attack.
The same was true of Clinton's Impeachment-eve bombing of Iraq. This was an even greater fraud since it was Clinton who shelved this plan earlier in Oct or Nov...and only pulled it out when he needed it on the eve of Impeachment. You can read several accounts from the Pentagon on why many people were skeptical of this attack since Clinton had scrapped it earlier.
Contrary to Clinton's claims, most elected Republicans supported these efforts. In fact, when Tom Delay spoke out about the "timing" of Clinton's attack on Iraq, it was media, the Democrats and even his own Rpublicans who tore him up, with Maxine Waters literally questioning his "patriotism."