International law and the difficulty of dealing with Trump at war | Letters

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International law has evolved a lot since the 17th century, when sovereign nation states became the agreed structure of Europe. The United Nations charter, agreed after the second world war, aimed to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”.

While some European leaders still mention it in their social media posts and it gets a tick‑box mention in many official statements, clearly international law is today in critical condition.

Many think it hopeless, pointless and even naive to try to save it. But international law is not something abstract, not a creed for pacifists, nor old-fashioned liberal legalese. It was chiselled into history, decade after decade, by people hardened and scarred from the cruelty of violent nationalism.

It is meant to restrain the “strong man” leader. As the legal framework for two great peace projects, the European Union and the Good Friday agreement, it still restrains a lot of strong men. The UK is also still, thankfully, part of the European convention on human rights. International law is the invisible glue binding nations together, to resolve their disputes in peace, without resorting to the bombing of a girls’ primary school.
Barry Andrews
Chair of the development committee, European parliament

• Rafael Behr’s article on the dilemma facing Keir Starmer and the government during the present Iran conflict (Starmer’s position on Iran pleases no one, but that is because there are no good options, 3 March) is an excellent description of the difference between being the people responsible for decisions and those shouting from the sidelines with easy answers.

Dealing with a US president as fickle as Donald Trump is an almost impossible task, but deal with him we must, as the relationship with the US is too important to risk with glib comments and slogans. That we as a country need to move closer to Europe’s economies, politics, defence and security is of utmost urgency, but this cannot happen overnight and, especially with the situation in Ukraine, could have disastrous consequences for our and European security.
Alan Hobbins
Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire

• Donald Trump’s comparison of Keir Starmer to Winston Churchill when speaking about Iran is unfortunate, given that it was Winston Churchill who set about destroying parliamentary democracy in Iran in the 1950s (Trump rebukes Starmer again for not letting US attack Iran from UK bases, 3 March). Under the then prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, Iran wanted more of the proceeds of Iranian oil to go to the people of Iran, rather than to British-controlled Anglo-Iranian Oil. Churchill persuaded the Americans this move represented the “growth of communism in the Middle East” and a coup was planned against the elected government, which was then overthrown in March 1953.

The shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was then installed, and the sorry cycle of repression and torture began, which continued, for different reasons, under the so-called Islamic revolution. Since the destruction of democracy in Iran by Britain and America, a culture of repression of one kind or another has continued to blight the lives of the Iranian people, without respite, right up to the present day.
Tim Rossiter
Crickhowell, Powys

• And Trump is no Eisenhower, who, at the end of his presidency, warned against the influence of the military-industrial complex.
Karen Barratt
Winchester

• Donald Trump is clearly ignorant of Churchill’s remark that “Meeting jaw to jaw is better than war.”
Lawrence Forrester
Dorchester, Dorset

• Pete Hegseth, the US secretary of war, claimed that the attack on the Iranian warship is “the first sinking of an enemy ship by a torpedo since World War II” (US submarine sinks Iranian warship as conflict spreads beyond Middle East, 4 March). This is demonstrably untrue as the Royal Navy submarine HMS Conqueror torpedoed and sank the Argentine cruiser the General Belgrano in 1982.
Dr David Lowry
Senior international research fellow, Institute for Resource and Security Studies

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