> >It attacked Kuwait, but famously stopped short of advancing on Baghdad.
> >His possession of chemical weapons might have been part of the reason.
>
> I doubt it - I'm guessing they didn't want to cope with the mess that
> Junior has to deal with now. Didn't Zinni say as much a few years ago?
Absolutely. That was the main reason: not to create a problem for which there was no known solution.
The secondary reason was that Bush Sr. wanted to create a New World Order: a multilateral order under the hegemony of the US -- i.e., the cold war order continued, but with a new mission: to uphold international order, meaning the status quo when it came to borders. Upholding the status quo ante in the middle east was the mission that united Europe and the Arab world behind us (and induced them to bankroll it and give it such overwhelming legitimacy). Clearly that mission ended with the expulsion from Kuwait, and going further would have scuppered the whole long term framework. The US came out of that war with a lot of international political capital and Bush was planning on using it his second term.
So chemical weapons were a tertiary consideration. But they definately were considered. We didn't want them used on our troops and Baker made it clear at Geneva that that was a line that would risk total war if crossed. (Conversely that implied there would only be limited war if it wasn't.) It was also invoked as a consideration against those who argued that we should change course later and intervene during the Shia and Kurdish uprisings.
Michael