WHAT a great democratic British constitution we have ("Military strikes against Syrian regime 'could be under way by the weekend'", The Herald August 28, and Letters, August 28).

Even if the House of Commons does not give its consent to a UK military attack on Syria, the Prime Minister can go ahead anyway.

The brutality of the Syrian state is not in dispute, but I cannot see what conceivable motive it could have in waiting for the UN chemical weapons inspectors to arrive and then to launch a chemical weapons attack just a few miles from where the inspectors were in residence. Since Barack Obama had said chemical weapons were a red line, the whole awful attack was blatantly in the interests of opposition groups and against the interests of the Assad government. There are very wealthy Middle East states with proxies in Syria as well as an assortment of other outside groups. We don't know and may never know who was responsible.

But even if it were proved to be the Syrian state (and it appears that we are not even to wait for the report of the UN inspectors), what are the consequences of the UK playing its usual role of the White House's best little friend? We bomb a few targets without UN consent "to teach them a lesson". That's not going to stop the war. If they need to be taught another lesson, do we go and bomb a bit more? And then? Saudi Arabia and others want to draw us into this war for their own ends. The last country in the world that can take the moral high ground and lecture others about chemical weapons is the US. Its appalling use of Agent Orange and napalm during the Vietnam War was a humanitarian disgrace and no-one was ever put on trial for this.

Isobel Lindsay,

9 Knocklea Place, Biggar.

FROM a UK perspective, bombing Syria has very little to do with the situation in that country and everything to do with the special relationship with the United States in general and the predicament that the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has got himself into in particular.

The usually cautious (compared to his predecessor) President Obama drew the chemical weapons red line precisely because he was fairly confident the Assad regime would not cross it. It would seem he may have miscalculated. But as the Stratfor global intelligence organisation, which is in with the bricks of the Washington military and intelligence community has commented, there is something, in the literal sense of the word, incredible about the Assad regime resorting to chemical weapons. Moreover, some elements that are part of the patchwork that makes up the Syrian rebels are brutal types themselves and would dearly welcome this escalation.

But that is President Obama's dilemma to sort out. Here in the UK it seems that yet again we are to go to war in defence of that concept so beloved of our commentariat and at best of marginal interest to the principal partner, the special relationship.

Posturing, albeit bloodily, in the national interest, is to once again trump our actual national security.

Bill Ramsay,

84 Albert Avenue, Glasgow

DAVID Cameron disingenuously claims that the actions in Syria represent the first use of chemical weapons in the 21st century.

But we are entitled to reflect on who used Agent Orange in Vietnam. And, slightly later in the 20th century, on who colluded with the use of chemical weapons by Iraq against both Iran and its own Kurdish population in the 1980s. The information is available from recently declassified CIA documents. An 1997 international treaty bans the production, stockpiling or use of any chemical weapons. So we are also entitled to ask whether the United States, Britain, or any of their allies retain stocks of such weapons themselves. And if so, why?

All war is ugly: civil war particularly so. Rather than arming the protagonists to the eyeballs, shouldn't our ostensibly-responsible governments engage in negotiating ceasefires, which will no doubt be messy but can reduce, and, with patience, ultimately end the bloodshed.

Aonghas MacNeacail,

The Rock, Carlops, Peeblesshire.

HOW may innocent civilian Syrians is it acceptable for us to kill to punish Bashar al Assad for killing innocent civilians?

Steve Stirling,

122 High Street, Falkirk.