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Alastair Crooke (The Red Line is not crossed, 17 June) asks the right question: "Will arming the opposition make the situation for the Syrian people better, or will it lead to more bloodshed?" However, he obscures the answer by turning to statistics about the volume of small arms allegedly provided to opposition groups when the key issue is the regime's persistent deployment of heavy weaponry against civilian populations.
The significance of this is demonstrated by an analysis of the data collected by the Centre for Documentation of Violations in Syria: of the 11,000 deaths of women and children it has documented thus far in the conflict, some 7,500 have died as a result of regime aerial bombardment and shelling of their towns and neighbourhoods. Measures which would limit the regime's freedom to casually use heavy weapons in this fashion would certainly "make the situation for the Syrian people better".
Brian Slocock
Chester
• Your leading article (Editorial, 19 June) fails to mention that it was Cairo, not Tehran, which made a bad situation worse. On the same day the US announced its decision to arm the rebels, a conclave of Sunni clerics in Cairo sanctified jihad against the Shias and Hezbollah, thereby turning the Syrian conflict from a war of liberation into a war between Muslim sects.
If the west chooses to arm the rebels at this critical juncture, it will be entering, albeit indirectly, the Syrian conflict on the side of the Sunnis, although it was Sunnis, not Shias, who carried out the 9/11 and subsequent acts of terrorism against the west.
Shia Iran now has a reformist president, who wants to re-establish relations with the west. Perhaps it is time that the west, instead of plunging into Syria's sectarian quagmire, engaged President Hassan Rouhani and let him spell out his rapprochement plan, if any.
Randhir Singh Bains
Gants Hill, Essex
• David Cameron says everyone wants a new government in Syria. No they do not. Everyone wants peace in Syria, even if that means Bashar al-Assad staying in place. Cameron should be leading an all-out effort to ensure that the planned Geneva peace conference is a success. If it does not succeed, the next step should be a redoubling of diplomatic efforts, not their abandonment.
Our government, by blocking the involvement of Iran in peace negotiations, pushing for arming the rebels, backing unnecessary preconditions about the role of Assad and generally treating him with contempt, has greatly damaged the prospects for a peaceful resolution of this catastrophe in Syria.
Brendan O'Brien
London
• The prime minister is right to acknowledge that we're in it for the long haul on Syria, which has prompted the largest single funding commitment ever made by the UK in response to a humanitarian disaster. But the urgent focus needs to be on the many Syrians simply unable to access humanitarian aid in any form.
Doctors of the World runs centres in Lebanon and Jordan and, although we also have medics inside Syria, we are often powerless to help many Syrians because cross-border assistance is prohibited for opposition-controlled areas. Assistance is sometimes allowed via Damascus but this can often be dangerous due to geography and the quagmire of checkpoints and bureaucracy. Yes, Syrians need aid but we must ensure they can benefit from it and not just those in government-controlled areas.
Leigh Daynes
Doctors of the World (Médecins du Monde) UK
• Surely the "red line" that Assad has crossed in Obama's eyes is his regaining control of Syria. Those of us who are old enough to remember WMD in Iraq are not taken in by the sarin claim.
Martin Davidson
Bromley, Kent
• It may be an old-fashioned concept, but surely it is up to the Syrian people to decide who their government is, not Vladimir Putin or any other members of the self-selecting G8.
Declan O'Neill
Oldham