I SHOULD be flattered that the redoubtable Keith Howell (Letters, May 9) has turned from smiting the Amalekite SNP to breaking a lance with me. Sadly, I am unimpressed by his contribution. He discusses the fate of smaller nations breaking away from control by their larger neighbours; perhaps he could give us a list of countries that have broken from London rule in the last 100 years, and subsequently sought to have it re-imposed.

On the nuclear issue, he supports “standing for what is right”. I entirely agree. There are rules in war. You may not (for example) rape, torture, kill prisoners of war, or deliberately target the civilian population – even where doing so is believed to bring victory nearer (the “Hiroshima Fallacy”). Such conduct devastates “ius gentium”, fundamental human norms. Which is why weapons of indiscriminate destruction such as Trident are criminal and illegal.

He claims to believe in multilateralism. This particular straw man is long due to be dumped in the compost heap of history. The old “multilateralism good/unilateralism bad” myth is a 50-year old Tory lie. The fact is, no British nuclear weapon has ever been negotiated away.

We have always upgraded our weapons, decreasing the numbers yes, but increasing lethality and usability. Thus, the obsolete free-fall W177 was replaced by the superior Polaris missile, Polaris upgraded by Chevaline, and Chevaline by Trident. We have taken no steps towards de-escalation and elimination. Not one.

We signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) way in back in 1968. By Article VI of this, the signatories promised in good faith to eliminate their nuclear arsenals. But all nine rogue nuclear states are modernising and upgrading their weaponry instead. Trident will be replaced in 2025 when it reaches its “use by” date, and Britain will in perpetuity threaten enemies with mass slaughter, while hypocritically preaching “Don’t do as I do, do as I say”.

An independent Scotland with a written constitution banning all nuclear weapons from its lands and waters means the end for Trident, as the Coulport /Faslane complex is the only place in the UK the beast can operate out of. This is in truth the “moral high ground”. Where else should we stand?

Mr Howell simply ignores what I said, that in the real world, last year 122 states in the UN agreed a treaty banning nuclear weapons. Why does he not call upon the UK Government to support this crucial multilateral step?

Brian M Quail,

2 Hyndland Avenue,

Glasgow.

WE have often had warlike, materialistic, arms-dealing Westminster governments over the last 40 years. They have supported bombing countries which are no threat to us and fed us nonsense like “Protect and Survive” leaflets. If only they would consider the wisdom of many great men and women from, for example, Samuel Johnson (“a decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilisation”) and Mahatma Gandhi (“a nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members”), to the present day. A better balance must be found if mankind is to survive. Spending billions of pounds doing good at home and around this hungry and war-ravaged world instead of building nuclear bombs to annihilate it would be a start.

I will march, write letters and attempt to convince anyone who will listen of the importance of making governments support the United Nations Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons Treaty of July 7, 2017. What else can I do?

Sandra Phelps,

10 Kelvin Drive,

Glasgow.

I AM appalled to learn that Donald Trump has decided to break the binding agreement with Iran signed jut three years ago by his predecessor, the Democrat Barack Obama. The treaty was also signed by the UK and several other leading world nations, and ensured that Iran would no longer seek to produce its own nuclear weapons (“Trump defies allies to pull out of ‘defective’ nuclear deal with Iran”, The Herald, May 9).

This unilateral and short-sighted action can only further upset the delicate political peace balance in that troubled area, and may even lead to another major conflict.

America’s poor relationship with Iran goes back to the shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane by a US warship in the 1980s, the temporary internment of American embassy staff Tehran, and the reprisal of a US civilian airliner being blown up over Lockerbie (an act of international terrorism wrongly in my view blamed on Libya).

President Trump’s aggressive action will have no positive effect on Iran and its behaviour, but instead can only lead to an even more dangerous escalation of the political situation in that troubled area of the world.

Iain AD Mann,

7 Kelvin Court, Glasgow.

FIFTEEN years ago we were taken by George W Bush and Tony Blair into war with Iraq on the basis of a dodgy dossier claiming Iraq had illegal chemical weapons, claims which every competent authority of the ground stated were false, and which were subsequently proven to be so, at the cost of 500,000 human lives.

Today we are being told on the basis of a dodgy Israeli dossier that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons programme, claims which every competent authority charged with verification has stated are false.

These claims come from a state which itself has an estimated 100-400 nuclear warheads, and which has refused to sign the international treaty banning the spread of nuclear weapons – though, pointing this out will be doubtless seen as anti-Semitism. Mordechai Vanunu, who in 1986 revealed the Israeli nuclear weapons programme spent more than 18 years in Israeli jails, 11 in solitary confinement, after being abducted and tried in camera.

In this increasingly mad world, Donald Trump, who in little over a year has brought us to the brink of a wider war in Korea, Syria and now Iran, is being seriously touted as a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Methinks that had such an award existed in 1938 Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler would have received it for the Munich Agreement which dismembered Czechoslovakia with the phrase “Peace in Our Time”. After all, war criminals and terrorists such as Menachem Begin, Anwar Sadat and Henry Kissinger have previously received this award.

Let us instead give that prize to the courageous Mr Vanunu, and distance ourselves from the madness of President Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, before we have another Iraq tragedy, but worse, on our hands.

Ian R Mitchell,

21 Woodside Terrace, Glasgow.