Madam, - The US attitude to Iran's nuclear policy is informed not by oil prices and business interests as Hugo Brady Brown contends (August 16th) but by matters of regional and global security.
The world's number one state sponsor of terrorism, the Islamic Republic was responsible for outrages and attacks on three continents over the first 20 years of its existence and it continues to use terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy through the logistical and financial support of Hizbullah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and various jihadist groups in Iraq. An Iranian bomb would therefore represent what Tony Blair defined in his speech to the American Joint Houses of Congress in July 2003 as the greatest threat faced by the 21st-century world - the "coming together" of "terrorism and states developing weapons of mass destruction".
This is why Tehran's atomic ambitions are vehemently opposed, not only by America, but by the EU and great swathes of Arab opinion, as well as by Israel, which has been directly threatened with nuclear annihilation by the Khamenei mullahcracy.
On the subject of Israel, Mr Brady Brown is incorrect in his implication that the failure of the US to equally oppose its nuclear programme is hypocritical for, in reality, the situations could scarcely be less comparable. Israel's atomic arsenal was developed solely to protect the state from the then genocidal designs of its inveterately hostile neighbours and it has proved its effectiveness as an instrument of national defence.
For example, the limited war aims of Egypt and Syria in 1973 resulted from their fear of the Israeli bomb while Anwar Sadat was on record as saying that the realisation that a nuclear-armed Israel could never be militarily defeated played a significant part in his decision to seek peace four years later. More recently, Saddam's failure to use chemical warheads against Israel in 1991 has been attributed to a fear of an Israeli nuclear reprisal.
That even such considerations appear immaterial to Tehran underlines the fact that Iran's nuclear ambitions must be thwarted by every and any means. - Yours etc,
SEAN GANNON, Woodlands, Cahir, Co Tipperary.
Madam, - Thanks are due to Lara Marlowe (Opinion, August 16th) for the first sane report on Iran and its nuclear ambitions that I have read in the Western media. Accurate, concise and balanced, it has cut through the soup of US disinformation and sabre-rattling to reveal the essence of the issue: UN treaty rules apply to everyone. - Yours, etc,
SIMON McGUINNESS, St Joseph's Cottages, Ashtown, Dublin 7.