Madam, - Paul Artherton (April 24th) is "flabbergasted" at Hillary Clinton's threat to obliterate Iran in retaliation for a nuclear strike against Israel.
If born since 1991, he will not remember the 40-year stand-off between the superpowers during which nuclear peace was maintained by just such a threat of mutual obliteration. If born before that date, he may even owe his own birth and upbringing in a free society to the same threat.
Does Mr Artherton suggest that the West turn its back while tiny Israel is nuclear-blackmailed or bombed out of existence (one strike on Tel Aviv would be enough), in fulfilment of the oft-repeated threats of Iran's leaders to wipe it off the map? If he can account for Mrs Clinton's statement only in terms of the tired old cliché of the "pro-Israeli lobby", he seriously underestimates the depth of attachment of the American people to the idea of a Jewish national home, a bond that goes back at least two centuries.
President Ahmadinejad said only this week that the way forward for Iran is through the fostering of a "culture of martyrdom" in the nation. Given such a mentality at the top, the only hope for the emergence of a more rational leadership lies in making the threat of retaliation as comprehensive as possible.
If Mr Artherton wishes to avoid having to think the unthinkable about Iran, he should support those measures aimed at preventing it acquiring a nuclear weapon in the first place - although, as Charles Krauthammer has recently pointed out, it may already be too late for that.
- Yours, etc,
DERMOT MELEADY, Dublin 3.
Madam, - It is not a "factual error" that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has threatened to "wipe Israel from the map" (April 25th).
This threat has been widely reported, including by Al Jazeera (eg http://tinyurl.com/36yv6c), since he uttered it to 4,000 students on Wednesday October 16th 2005 at a conference in Tehran entitled "The World without Zionism".
If it were a mistranslation from Farsi, as Coilín Ó hAiseadha suggests, Mr Ahmadinejad has had over two years to make a correction, not to mention those 4,000 students. He has not, and neither have they.
- Yours, etc,
TONY ALLWRIGHT, Killiney, Co Dublin.