Sir, – What motive could there possibly have been for using chemical weapons at this stage of the war in Syria? As UN mediator Staffan de Mistura argued, whenever there is a "feeling of hope" for progress towards a solution, "there is someone, somehow, that tries to undermine that feeling of hope and transforms it into a feeling of horror and outrage" ("Syrian chemical attack could derail talks process to end war", April 5th). At the very least, should there not have been some impartial, international investigation of the facts before one country decided to take the law in its hands and retaliate? In whose name were more Syrian lives sacrificed, and to what purpose? This is dangerous madness, and it seems that the spoilers have again prevailed. – Yours, etc,
CLAUDINE GAIDONI,
Dublin 7.
Sir, – Whatever may come from President Trump’s decisive action against Syria, he has gained the respect of the American people and nearly all the world leaders. With one decisive action, the US president has put our adversaries on notice that America is no longer a paper tiger. – Yours, etc,
JOHN LEMANDRI,
Williamsburg,
Virginia.
Sir, – It is ironic that while on the same day Boris Johnson was in Brussels condemning the barbaric chemical weapons attack on the Syrian people by Assad’s forces, the British prime minister Theresa May was in Saudi Arabia attempting to sell arms to the Saudis, without doubt for use in the current conflict in Yemen, a conflict that has killed thousands of civilians and a blockade that has caused a humanitarian disaster. Undoubtedly weapons traded between the UK and Saudi Arabia are legal weapons whereas the weapons used in Syria, to quote Boris Johnson, “were illegal“; as they suffer the horrors of this war, I wonder do the Yemeni people appreciate the difference? – Yours, etc,
VINCENT WARFIELD,
Castleconnell, Co Limerick.