Saudi Arabia is certainly fighting proxy wars in the Middle East (Allies rally to Johnson over Saudi gaffe, 9 December), as well as promoting its form of Islam in many countries around the world. But it is not just for their oil and for their lucrative custom, for as long as they can pay, that we court Saudi Arabia. We were friendly with the Shah of Persia and selling him aircraft only weeks before he fled his country. The west found itself needing the stability the Saudi regime provides in the region.

But it can now be predicted that all of this will end – perhaps soon – and that things will become catastrophically worse in the region. Saudi Arabia is running out of money and, despite protestations and efforts to prevent it, the momentum towards bankruptcy seems unstoppable. Saudi’s cash flow is depleted by low oil prices and by steadily decreasing demand for oil from that area. If the House of Saud suddenly falls, as did the Shah, religious revolutionaries of many shades will clash for power and seize the country’s massive stock of armaments. Client states will be left penniless and exposed.

Richard Wilson

Oxford

• When individuals sell arms on the international market it is called gun-running; when our government sells arms it is called “protecting jobs”, or “assisting our allies”. Britain is the second biggest arms dealer in the world, with most of the weapons fuelling conflicts in the Middle East. We sell arms to countries accused of war crimes and to countries that the Foreign Office lists as having dubious human rights records. We exported $1.7bn of arms to Saudi Arabia last year and there is an order backlog over the next decade currently worth $9.2bn. Areas of north Yemen are being bombed by Saudi war planes. Is this what UK citizens wish their government to be spending its energies and resources on?

Jim McCluskey

Twickenham, Middlesex

• I have just watched Michael Fallon defend British support for Saudi Arabia in Yemen by saying that country has a right to try and restore the official government in that country and defeat the Houthi rebels who are “allied to al-Qaida”. Could anyone explain how this is any different from Russian actions in Syria, which attempt to restore the official government and defeat the Islamist rebels. In both cases civilians are being slaughtered and war crimes committed. Is anyone else fed up with these double standards?

Jane Ghosh

Bristol

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