UKH

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46410225

Will he always be remembered for not pushing on from Kuwait? Was it the right or wrong decision?

RIP George Bush Senior

Regardless , 94 is good going 

Regarding the Gulf War, it was a textbook example of how to do it. There was a clear breach of international law from a dangerous aggressor, full UN backing was obtained, the military action was swift, decisive and had a clear objective. Once that was achieved the military action was stopped and the wider threat Saddam Hussain posed was effectively contained. History has shown that not pushing on from Kuwait was the right decision even though it must have been tempting at the time.

It stands in stark contrast to the Iraq war which lacked all the above and was a perfect example of an unnecessary war and the Syrian conflict which was a perfect example of what can happen if you don't fight a war when you should.

I'm totally in agreement on most of that but I'm not sure about Syria. At what stage do you think we should have stepped in and in what form? I don't think it could have met the criteria you identified as validating the first Gulf War. UN approval would have been hard to achieve and the situation was so complex that "swift, decisive and a clear objective" seems like a pipedream. If anything, I wonder whether the West's mistake might have been hinting at support that we weren't actually willing to give when it came to the crunch? Did we stoke a fire that we had no will or ability to harness or contain?

This is a very inexpert opinion, I don't recall the details very well, so I'd welcome your thoughts. Are you suggesting more action in support of non-ISIS rebels early in the conflict?

There was a clear breach of international law when Assad crossed Obama's "red line" and used chemical weapons. The failure of the British parliament to back intervention at this point and America's failure to go it alone undermined anything the west then said.

We didn't need to commit ground troops at this point but serious air strikes against Syria's military infrastructure and an enforced no fly zone in Syrian airspace would have prevented the regime from its air war and barrel bombing and would have effectively neutralised it.

This failure left a vacuum into which Putin stepped and controlled the air. Syria, now protected by Russia was able to wage war (and war crimes) with impunity against its own people and the migrant crisis stepped up to a whole new level. It also emboldened Putin to take an increasingly aggresive stance towards the west in general which we see continuing to this day.

It was never going to be a swift decisive war like the Gulf War, not all wars can be, but it could have been a lot less messy than it was. I think the reality is that the legacy of the Iraq war is that it sapped the west's confidence to do the 'right thing' when it should.

Before all this, we agitated for an uprising in Syria, providing weapons and training.

If we haven't helped to start it, and provided support to keep it going, it would have been swift and decisive - just not for the side we would have liked. Countless lives would not have been lost.

Completely agree, we undermined our credibility. Never make a threat you won't follow through on.

However, there never would have been UN approval for any action against Assad because Russia would have vetoed it, so that instantly undermines your first criteria.

I'm also not sure it's clear that limiting our involvement to the air would have been enough to prevent Assad from committing atrocities. Maybe we could have destroyed most of his air force but could we be confident Russia wouldn't help him build it up again? Even if they didn't, would keeping him out of the air have been enough to stop him slaughtering people, or would it just have slowed him down a bit? I think some of the chemical attacks were launched from the ground anyway.

What should the ultimate goal have been? Punish Assad for using chemical weapons but allow him to suppress the rebels by other means? Keep bombing him until he loses? What if Russia got involved anyway?

By this stage, the situation was hellishly complicated. I'm not sure intervention could possibly have been swift and decisive with a clear objective and it certainly wouldn't have had UN support. The West certainly made mistakes but I think the biggest mistake might have been offering any degree of support and encouragement to a rebellion that we weren't willing or able to fully commit ourselves to.

OK, so my understanding is probably less than it should be but surely the main challenge in backing the rebellion was that there was no single rebel force and  certain factions (ISIL for example) in the rebellion were simply not supportable - in fact the opposite.

Indeed. I'm reliably informed that there were (and presumbly still are) over twenty rebel factions - each with their own goals and ideals, and not all on good terms with each other. It wasn't a rebel uprising versus the government, it was a large number of rival gangs in little more than a complicated free-for-all united only in the one objective of fighting the government forces.

Any military involvement would have had huge potential to go badly wrong very quickly, as happened in Iraq, with the added complication of Russia being allied with the forces we would have been fighting. A very dangerous scenario, and not one I'd like to have seen played out.

Absolutely. I'm not arguing that we should have backed them up at all. I think we were right to stay out of such a complex and messy situation but still somewhat culpable in implying that we would potentially get involved. And then, of course, we did anyway.

Though I think some argue that the rebels were less full of ISIL-like elements early in the war.

Well they didn't exactly stop at the Kuwait border.  The Iraqi army was almost  annihilated on the road back to Basra.

In any event George Bush Senior was a fine President. He had a respected war record being the youngest person to enlist as a pilot in the US Navy where he won a distinguish flying cross and a presidential unit citation. As for his public service. He was Director of the CIA, US ambassador to the UN, served 2 terms as vice President before becoming President of the US in 1988. 

Contrast with a hotel operator and TV celeb!

"we" didn't help start it. 

Syria was and is ruled by a brutal and oppressive regime and there was a popular revolt to overthrow it.

I think that you are overstating things a little here. Otherwise we would almost certainly have pushed on.

I wasn't saying that all wars must have full UN backing, just that it helps if you can. Clearly there will always be times when Russia will use its veto but that can't stop us in every instance. Bush Snr. Was able to get full UN backing, perhaps because the then Soviet Union was falling apart at the time. He took time to build consensus which helped but that time isn't always there.

It was/is a messy conflict and I understand our reluctance to get involved especially on the ground, but using chemical weapons was, and should always be, a red line. If it is allowed to happen once it can only embolden others to do so again. This has repercussions into the future beyond Syria. We didn't need to get involved on the ground to establish that principal which ultimately could be more important than the outcome of the Syrian war.

Russia didn't really get involved until after we failed to. If we had established air supremacy first they would not have done so. Turkey shot down one Russian plane and nothing happened because Russia, whilst willing to do everything it can to undermine the west does not want direct conflict with NATO.

An air campaign would have seriously hindered Assad, probably tipped the war the other way but that's not the most important thing from the west's perspective. It was always going to be a mess but got a lot messier when we did nothing.

There don't seem to have been any chemical weapons attacks since Trump bombed Assad for their use. I don't wish to praise Trump, he's an idiot, but in this case he was right and the message did get through, unfortunately it was too late to stop Russian involvement and the migrant crisis. Destroying his air force would also have stopped the barrel bombing which was so devastating to civilians.

See above

Yes, it was overstating in terms of annihilation of manpower but not too wide of the mark with regards to materiel. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_of_Death

Yes we did. We had people in there providing training, intelligence and arms to factions before a shot was fired.

Without our support the uprising may have happened anyway, but it would have been snuffed out pretty quickly by a well armed government with powerful friends - we did our best to make sure that didn't happen because we don't like the powerful friends.

Assad is not a nice guy, but we knew Russia wouldn't allow us to knock him off his perch easily, and that the result would be a body civil war with devastating consequences for the people of Syria, so let's not pretend we were supporting terrorist groups for humanitarian reasons.

As stated the Iraqi army was caught in the open, all lined up on the road and took an absolute hammering from air attack.  However the US did not push on to Baghdad as that was outside the agreed scope of the war.  Very well documented decision by pres. Bush.

He also saw theouth the introduction of the clean air act and American s with disabilities act.  

 Downside in foreign policy was he introduced the US based in the middle East that were a trigger for increased Islamic fundamentalism