Simon Tisdall complains that “nothing has worked” in Syria, as though everything has been tried (After Douma, the west’s response must be military, 10 April). Yet western powers have from the outset left many options untried: for example, withdrawing support from rebel militias; dropping regime change as the absurd precondition for “negotiations”; or even now, supporting the Russian-Syrian proposal that the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) visit Douma.
Instead, Tisdall calls for bigger and more deadly munitions on the (bizarrely anonymous) rebel side, disarming the government side, and attacking Iranian and Russian bases with no concern for any consequences. He and others would destroy what is left of Syria and widen the theatre of its war on the basis of video and testimony from Jaysh al-Islam: a jihadist group that itself allegedly mounted a chemical attack on Kurdish civilians in Aleppo in April 2016 – yet who it seems are entirely incapable of either staging or faking another such attack from which only it could be a beneficiary.
Rather than following commentators who would lead us into disaster, we should be clear that our government has not been a mere bystander in this brutal war; and that it now wants to escalate its involvement, driven once again by strategic goals rather than the moral outrage that is so selectively served up to us.
Peter McKenna
Liverpool
• The British government has rightly been appalled at the use of chemical weapons in Syria. The US and France have responded similarly and with threats of possible military action. All three countries and Russia claim not to possess any chemical weapons and all are bound by treaty not to do so. Yet all those countries are proud possessors of a nuclear arsenal, weapons of mass destruction incomparably more hideous than chemical weapons, and seem totally unable to see their own immense hypocrisy. The UN has drafted a treaty for the abolition of nuclear weapons, which many countries have already signed but which is waiting for signatures from the nations that possess these monstrosities. A signature from the UK would show that our abhorrence of weapons of mass destruction is sincere and not just a pretence used to pour obloquy on Russia.
Anthony Matthew
Leicester
• There is something we can do (The west can do nothing, 9 April). That is to open our doors and homes to as many refugees from the countries that the UK has fought over, or armed, or both, as we can. This is why the government should, as a matter of urgency, extend its Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme indefinitely and more generously while reversing the attitudes towards refugees, immigrants and asylum seekers that were fostered in the Home Office.
Angus Doulton
Chair, West Devon Safe Haven
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