British Ambassador: Yes, Britain is Still a Global Bully and Will Remain So

This would be hilarious, if it weren't so sad.. Sir Peter Westmacott, British Ambassador to the U.S. offered on Sunday on CNN a rebuttal to Fareed Zakaria's take a week earlier that Great Britain is no longer a great global power.

 Zakaria sets the scene (CNN transcript)

 ZAKARIA: Last week in my take here on GPS and my "Washington Post" column, I said that after 300 years, Britain had resigned its role as a global power.

Here's some of the examples of what I offered as evidence. The shrinking of Britain's army. The possibility that in the future it could have the same amount of manpower as the New York police department. The fact that Britannia can no longer rule the waves since it currently has no aircraft carriers, though it does have two under construction. The 25 percent cuts in the Foreign Ministry in David Cameron's first term, and cuts in the BBC World Service, its public diplomacy arm.

Well, as you might imagine, my article generated strong feelings. Some Brits, especially David Cameron's fellow conservatives, thought I had maligned their great nation. Other Brits, especially opposition labor rights, said hear, hear, which today means multiple re-tweets.

One of the parties who begged to differ with me was her majesty's ambassador to the United States of America, Sir Peter Westmacott, Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George. He joins me now.

Peter, pleasure to have you on.

Then, in what has to be viewed as an embarrassing performance by any freedom loving Brit, who still somehow associates with the government, Westmacott went on to claim that Britain is still a global force to be reckoned with and justified his claim by listing the many ways that Britain remains a global bully. From the transcript:

I think this talk of strategic shrinkage or Britain withdrawing from the world is seriously overstated. If you look at the reality of life, it is different. Yes, you're right. the Foreign office has had to take its cuts. But then the British government has had to make savings....And yet at the same time we've got more diplomatic posts open around the world. We're in 160 different countries. We got 270 different posts. We are very active. And if you look at the capabilities, you look at what we do with our armed services and our diplomacy around the world, it is still a pretty remarkable story. The stuff that we're doing, for example, in Iraq, where we're providing an ISR capabilities, precision strikes, air tanking, delivery of munitions to the Kurds to help them fight back against ISIL and so on.

We are doing a lot in different parts of the world. I think the U.K. is still very much in business. And if you look ahead at the fact that we're going to spend 250 billion pounds over the next 10 years on new equipment, building those aircraft carriers that you mentioned, buying the F-35s to put on it, replacing our nuclear deterrent submarines, we're doing a great deal of things in the future...

 If you look at what we are doing now in the U.S.-led coalition against ISIL, it is really very significant what we're doing in Iraq. We're also active in Syria. We're not taking part in air strikes in Syria. That is indeed the case. But we are very engaged in the campaign to get rid of Bashar al-Assad...

 we're doing a great deal with air tanking, with precision bombing, with trade and equip, with counter IEDs especially support to the Iraqi armed forces.

We are significant players. So I think you should judge us by what's going on, by our action, and also by our very substantial investment programs for the future of our military capability.

 -RW