IN 1991, Bush had to weigh several potential issues before decinding. 1) The public was horrified by the highway of death leading out of Kuwait. 2) Gorbachev was in serious danger of being deposed and the Russian thaw going into deep freeze. 3) Reagan had just spent 8 years being friendly to the Iranian fight with Iraq, and it was felt unwise to weaken Iraq too much and allow an Iranian takeover.
My opinion is that Bush should have continued the war 24 hours longer, and greatly weakened the Republican Guard. Also, he should never have allowed free use of helicopters which Saddam and Kusay used to great effect to destroy the Marsh Arabs and Kurdish areas.
Here is an interview with James Baker in which he discusses building the coalition to intervene over Iraq/Kuwait, which included getting Shevardnahze/Soviet Union on board.
This is/was part of the PBS Frontline documentary on James Baker's career which was entitled James Baker: The Man Who Made Washington Work
Two Russian Generals involved in that effort to depose Gorbachev were given award medals by Saddam Hussein a week or so before the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. [snip] Gen. Achalov was a former Soviet deputy defense minister and airborne troops commander and chief of the rapid-reaction forces. Gen. Maltsev was chief of the Soviet air defense forces. Both backed the aborted coup against Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991 and were sacked afterward. A third photograph shows the two generals with the head of the Iraqi chief of the general staff, Gen. Izzat Ibrahim. .... [/snip] -----Washington Times4