When Moustapha received Belt in his office in Washington to give him a visa, he probably "suggested" people to be interviewed, all of whom are the regime's protégés, in addition to Assad himself. Even though Belt was unknown to Moustapha, the Syrian ambassador probably reasoned that Damascus can always benefit from a pre-planned piece in the National Geographic, at the time the Syrian regime is fighting tooth and nail to win some of the US administration's attention.
When Belt's article described Syria and its dictatorship more accurately than Moustapha had expected, the Syrian ambassador received a stern scolding from Damascus and had to rectify the situation by writing a rebuttal that was more incriminating to the Syrian regime than vindicating.
And for all those who could not finish the seemingly endless Moustapha response, rest assured that the Syrian ambassador never refuted Belt's accusations that the Syrian dictatorship had further tightened its grip by censoring Facebook, YouTube and a dozen other websites. Nor did Moustapha deign to answer the questions about the fate of the activists of the Damascus Spring.
After all, there are limits to how much tyranny an eloquent and intellectual Syrian ambassador can cover in one written document.
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