Parabellum -Thats a bit like saying WW2 was just a continuation
of WW1 because Hitler failed to abide by the Versailles agreement! The first Gulf War was finished because the coalition
had liberated Kuwait . There was no mandate from the UN to invade Iraq although that obviously did happen in the pursuit of Scuds and various elements of the Rebublican Guard.
Because of the disasterous way the Kurds were encouraged to attack Saddam and then left in the cold the various 'no fly'
zones in the country gave the allies the ability to keep a close eye on the Iraqi forces and give slight protection to the civilians.
There is scant evidence to suggest that the status quo had changed in any way - the so called 'spikes of activity' which preceded the second Gulf War are decidedly in the area of illegality because there was no manadate to carry out sustained
bombing of the Iraqi air defence network as a self defence measure . The justifications of which the war was based have been comprehensively shown to be decidely flawed - it's wasn't a case of getting it slightly wrong - the reasons were totally wrong.