IN A TIME OF CRISIS, HOW MUCH IS ONE 18 PAGE LETTER WORTH?

A FEW BILLION. OIL PRICE PLUNGES, SOME EXPERTS PIN IT TO IRAN'S LETTER TO THE US

RUSSIA FEARS US PUSH FOR SANCTIONS FIRST STEPS TO WAR

The President of Iran has broken a twenty seven year long diplomatic freeze between Iran and the United States by writing an 18 page letter to the US president, proposing "a way forward" and ideas "to move beyond" the current stalemate over the future of Iran's nuclear energy program.

The letter was passed from the Iranian foreign minister to Sweden's ambassador to Tehran, who then delivered it to US officials. Iran has decided not to make the contents of the letter public at this time, respecting diplomacy, though they may release the full letter to the media later.

Within hours of news of the letter becoming public, Secretary of State, Condaleeza Rice said the letter "changes nothing" and the US right-wing attack blogs went into a mild-frenzy about how Iran is "stalling", "trying to control the time frames" and "begging us not to nuke the fuck out of them".

"This letter is not the place that one would find an opening to engage on the nuclear issue or anything of the sort," Rice said. "It isn't addressing the issues that we're dealing with in a concrete way."

While the US President and the Australian Prime Minister has said there is little they can do to lower the price of fuel in their respective countries, it seems ironic that it was the President of Iran who has now actually brought some relief at the pumps.

Crude Oil Fell Below $70 A Barrel In New York After News Of The Letter Broke.

Russia has offered a proposal aimed at breaking the international deadlock by processing Iran's nuclear fuel on Russian territory and shipping it back to Iran. The plan is ``still on the table,'' Hamid Reza Asefi, a spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry, said on April 30, without elaborating.

From The Independent : The United States is backing attempts by Britain and France to win Security Council approval for a UN resolution that would threaten possible further measures if Iran does not suspend uranium enrichment - a process that can produce fuel for nuclear reactors to generate electricity or material for atomic warheads.

The Western nations want to invoke Chapter 7 of the UN Charter that would allow economic sanctions or military action, if necessary, to force Iran to comply with the Security Council's demand that it cease enrichment.

But Russia and China, the other two veto-holding members of the Security Council, oppose such moves.

Russia Doesn't Trust The US Enough To Vote For UN Resolutions That Would Allow Sanctions, Fearing the US, and UK, Would Use This Resolution To Begin Bombing Iran

Yury Fedotov, the Russian ambassador in London, said his country opposed the Chapter VII reference because it evoked memories of past UN resolutions on Yugoslavia and Iraq that led to US-led military action which had not been authorised by the Security Council.

Russia's partners in the Security Council had argued in the past that the reference was needed to obtain "robust language," he said. But "afterwards it was used to justify unilateral action. In the case of Yugoslavia, for example, we were told at the beginning that references to Chapter VII were necessary to send political signals, and it finally ended up with the Nato bombardments."