Joan Juliet Buck

When Joan Juliet Buck recently wrote a piece for Newsweek explaining how her controversial fluff profile on Asma al-Assad came about, she no doubt int

Writer Joan Juliet Buck has expressed discomfort with that ill-timed glowing profile of Syrian First Lady Asma al-Assad she wrote for Vogue last year, pointing out publicly that al-Assad is "extremely thin and very well-dressed and therefore, qualified to be in the Vogue," even if she was tied to an oppressive regime. And now that Buck no longer works for the fashion bible, she's written a lengthy piece for Newsweek called "Mrs. Assad Duped Me" to give her take on how that piece really came about and her experience in Syria.

After a 40 year relationship with Vogue, Joan Juliet Buck--former Vogue Paris editor and the author of that much-maligned profile of Asma al-Assad--has quietly parted ways with the magazine. It's not a new development. Apparently Buck hasn't appeared on Vogue's masthead since February of this year, which is right about the time she started to become more vocal and outspoken about the Syrian regime--and about the qualifications one needs to land a Vogue profile ( like being "extremely thin and very well-dressed.") WWD, in a rather uncharacteristically snarky article, reached out to Vogue for comment about the reasons behind the split and was told by a spokesperson that Buck's contract was up, "simple as that."

I think that Vogue is always on the lookout for good-looking first ladies because they're a combination of power and beauty and elegance...That's what

As fighting escalates in Syria and news of more atrocities--like using children as human shields--in the region accumulates, Anna Wintour is finally speaking out about that March 2011 Vogue feature on Syrian's first lady, Asma al-Assad. Al-Assad is the wife of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, and was the subject of a fawning profile penned by Joan Juliet Buck, titled "A Rose in the Desert.” This weekend the New York Times took a look at how the al-Assads essentially hoodwinked the western media--via paid PR companies--to get favorable coverage. The Vogue piece, which the powers-that-be subsequently removed from Vogue.com in the wake of criticism, was one of the more cringe-inducing examples. Soon after the article was published, Buck, the author (and the former EIC of French Vogue before Carine Roitfeld), started making the rounds to "speak out against the Assad regime." But how on earth did al-Assad get that whopping 3,200 word feature in the first place?