Living in Syria, one was very conscious that it was a tough police state. The only Syrians who spoke to a foreign ambassador were those with a licence to do so. After a visit to, say, Aleppo, everyone I met would be questioned afterwards by one of the six secret police forces wanting to know what had been discussed. Syrians had come to take this in their stride, knowing that the alternative would be either an Islamic dictatorship or a descent into sectarian competition, not to say strife.