Russia Finally Woke Up

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev admitted to President Obama during their summit meeting last week that American intelligence estimates about the pace of Iran's progress toward nuclear weapons capability have been more accurate than Russia's, a senior U.S. official told FOX News.

As a result, Moscow is now said to be open to "much more severe" punishment for Tehran if the regime there persists in enriching uranium into 2010.

The disclosures came as part of a wide-ranging discussion about the Obama administration's now-completed policy review on Iran, which has already led to several high-profile overtures to Tehran by Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. These gestures have included Obama's videotaped greeting marking the Iranian new year holiday of Nowruz, and Clinton's invitation for Iran to attend an international conference on Afghanistan that was held in The Hague on March 31.

The official, who plays a key role in the administration's Iran policy, requested anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss it publicly.

During their closed-door meetings at London's Winfield House on April 1, Medvedev told Obama, according to the source, that "your assessments have been more right than ours" about how quickly Iran's nuclear program has progressed. Such an admission by the Russian president startled those present, and is significant.

It shows that Moscow shares the sense of alarm about Iran's nuclear program exhibited by American and Israeli leaders; and it reflects renewed confidence abroad in American intelligence data, which many countries derided in the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

In the brief joint appearance before reporters that followed their private meetings, neither Medvedev nor Obama explicitly mentioned Iran. However a senior Obama aide who attended the presidents' private session and who was sent to brief the press about it that same day told reporters, without elaborating, that he was "struck by the agreement about threats from countries like ... Iran." That official added: "(The Russians have) always said Iran is not developing a nuclear weapon -- 'We have no evidence of that, show me that this is there.' And this (meeting between the two presidents) was a different tone than that."

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