Mr Annan declined, and instead endorsed Mr Malloch Brown's call for more effective American leadership.

ECONOMIST: United Nations

When Lord Malloch Brown went into the classroom, officers were playing war games - imagining responses to situations on the ground.

BBC: Taking Sandhurst to the DR Congo

Mark Malloch Brown, the administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, argues that Iraq may prove the opposite of other such reconstruction efforts.

ECONOMIST: Post-war Iraq

For Mr Malloch Brown is right: the biggest challenge is to establish a government that is legitimate both in Iraqi eyes, and in the world's.

ECONOMIST: Post-war Iraq

The Foreign Office in London has sounded a similar note, with minister Lord Malloch Brown saying sanctions would not be lifted until Zimbabwe's transition to democracy has "reached a point of no return".

BBC: Zimbabwe PM jeered by UK exiles

Former UK minister Mark Malloch-Brown said that the world would be watching Scotland as the referendum on independence draws nearer.

BBC: World is watching Scotland, says former UK minister

Mr Susman's comments chime with that of ex-UN deputy secretary general Mark Malloch-Brown, who said the US would be wise to keep out of the debate.

BBC: Scotland politics

Mr Malloch-Brown, who was minister of state at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in Gordon Brown's government, also believed the United States would be wise to keep out of the Scottish independence debate.

BBC: World is watching Scotland, says former UK minister