Time to end sabre-rattling and covert support in the Middle East

Your editorial calling for urgent diplomatic action on Syria (28 July) overlooks the fact that the Syrian armed "opposition", not the government, sabotaged attempts at meaningful negotiation under Kofi Annan's UN peace plan. Taking their cue from the US's bellicose stance, shamefully parroted by our own foreign secretary, these fragmented forces made clear their intransigence to anything but the removal of President Assad from power. As they try to undermine the regime, propped up by arms from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and colossal Nato logistical support, we are subjected to inflammatory media hysteria over the Syrian government's alleged brutality – notably unsubstantiated accusations of massacres. When the geopolitical agenda of the US and its allies in trying to overthrow the Assad regime by force is so transparent, can one blame Syria, a sovereign country, for doing all possible to defend itself?
Peter Godfrey
Isle of Harris, Western Isles

• If a few hundred armed rebels were lodged in south London, wouldn't we expect our government to use every means to destroy them? Would we blame the rebels or the government for collateral damage? What hypocrisy is it to say the Assad government should just give up? Why do we cheerlead religious extremists? Do we want another Sunni tyranny like Saudi? Are we happy to create a sectarian conflict? Have we forgotten Afghanistan? Iraq? Is it all designed to help the coming war against Iran? Two things seem clear: imperialism in the Middle East is very much alive and kicking and we're not being told the full truth.
Paul Baker

• If Israel were to take action on its own against Iran, Mitt Romney "would respect that" (Report, 30 July). It's fortunate that he is a just a presidential candidate. Isn't it time sabre-rattling against Iran was finally ended? Iran like Iraq has huge reserves of oil, the true reason for the Iraq debacle and the constant comment on Iran's nuclear ambitions.

And for Israel, or any other country with a nuclear arsenal, to threaten Iran is surely just a touch ironic. The US, Russia, India, the UK and France already have the capability to obliterate our fragile planet. Applying common sense as opposed to rhetoric, if the existing owners of nuclear weapons were to agree to neutralise these hideous weapons of mass destruction, then perhaps Iran would listen. No one has proved Iran has a nuclear weapon potential. If its president uses colourful rhetoric, it's hardly surprising, given Israel's sabre-rattling and other unhelpful comment from the west. History tells all: that Europe and the US armed Saddam Hussein to make war on Iran when a million Iranians were killed. And this was long before any talk of a nuclear threat. Oil had to be the reason.
John Page
Newark, Nottinghamshire

• Jonathan Freedland (The battle for Syria is a battle for the entire Middle East, 21 July) says "some say" the US and its allies are arming the Syrian rebels as if it was just a rumour. Yet the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post have reported this for months. The two monarchies openly say they're paying the "wages" of the "Free Syrian Army". He claims that if Assad falls, the Arab spring will have succeeded with secular Arab dictatorships gone forever, while if he doesn't it will have failed.

Yet dictatorships and militaries in Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi and Yemen continue to kill unarmed protesters with arms, support and funding from the US and its allies. So the campaign to overthrow Assad by arming the rebels can't be about protecting civilians or ending dictatorships. It's about isolating Iran by removing its main ally. To avoid many more lost lives in a sectarian civil war across Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, the US alliance should stop arming the rebels and encourage power-sharing between Assad and the Syrian opposition instead.
Duncan McFarlane
Carluke, Lanarkshire

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