SARKOZY HAS SEEN OBAMA FOR WHAT HE TRULY IS: AN EMPEROR WITH NO CLOTHES - AND THAT'S DANGEROUS

When France chides you for appeasement, you know you're scraping bottom. ... At the council table, with Obama at the chair, he [SARKOZY] reminded Obama that "we live in a real world, not a virtual world."

He explained: "President Obama has even said, 'I dream of a world without [nuclear weapons].' Yet before our very eyes, two countries are currently doing the exact opposite."

The President is believed to have angered the European leaders by insisting on delaying a joint press conference until after he had chaired a meeting of the UN Security Council.

Mr Obama is said to have been worried the announcement would undermine the impact of his session on nuclear non-proliferation.

Details of the disagreement appeared to explain why Mr Brown and Mr Sarkozy, the French president, took a harder line on Iran than the American leader at the meeting.

The Prime Minister said it was time "to draw a line in the sand" on Tehran's nuclear programme while the Frenchman mocked Mr Obama for the naivety of his "dreams" of eliminating nuclear weapons.

According to French officials, Mr Brown and particularly Mr Sarkozy wanted to make a declaration on Sep 24, either at the Security Council meeting chaired by the US president or just afterwards.

The Europeans considered that there was no better stage from which to tell the world that the three countries' intelligence services had worked together to uncover an underground uranium enrichment facility under construction at Qom.

But Mr Obama did not want to "spoil the image of success" of his disarmament session, which passed a resolution to work towards a nuclear-free world and a host of measures designed to control the spread of nuclear weapons and reduce existing stocks.

After much arm-twisting, Mr Brown and Mr Sarkozy were persuaded to delay the announcement until the opening of the G20 summit the next day in Pittsburgh.