As the program to destroy Syria’s arsenal of chemical weapons begins, the embattled regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is winning some rare praise from the West for its cooperation in the ambitious mission. Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday that it was a “credit” for the Assad regime that the process of destroying the chemical weapons had begun in “record time” and with the compliance of Damascus.

Within two minutes of crossing from Turkey into Syria, I’m on the back of a motorbike being given a lift to a Free Syrian Army press office. It turns out to be a forty second ride but I might have missed it otherwise. It’s just a little prefab house across the road from a refugee camp, but it’s here that I’ve been told I can get some basic information and hire a translator.

The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council have agreed on a resolution that will require Syria to give up its chemical weapons, but the text will not threaten the use of force for a failure to comply, officials said. The office of the American ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, announced the deal.

This week on the Listening Post: Presidents, propaganda and channelling the media to get the message out: a look at the similarities and differences between Syria in 2013 and Iraq 10 years ago. As the crisis in Syria deepens, the diplomatic battle outside the country – being fought out in the global media – intensifies.

President Barack Obama, speaking at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, appeared to open the door for diplomatic solutions in the Syrian conflict and with Iran. In his 50-minute speech to the General Assembly, Obama pressed the United Nations and its member states to take action to resolve the Syrian conflict, saying that the "crisis in Syria and the destablization of the region goes to the heart of the broader challenges the international community must now face."

As the United States debates its role in the ongoing turmoil in Syria, we might do well to remember our initial foray into the region nearly a century ago. The very first American intelligence officer dispatched to that region was a 29 year-old man named William Yale. Until the United States entered World War I in April 1917, he had been living in Ottoman-controlled Syria as a local agent for the Standard Oil Company of New York.

The Kremlin on Sunday accused Washington of trying to sabotage a U.S.-Russian agreement for Syrian leader Bashar Assad to surrender his chemical arsenal. “Our U.S. partners are beginning to blackmail us," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Sunday in an interview with the First Channel, a state-owned television network.

This week on the Listening Post: Presidents, propaganda and channelling the media to get the message out: a look at the similarities and differences between Syria in 2013 and Iraq 10 years ago. As the crisis in Syria deepens, the diplomatic battle outside the country – being fought out in the global media – intensifies. Newscasts have chronicled the summit meetings, various bilateral talks, the photo-ops that precede the gatherings behind closed doors – while waiting for a vote on a UN resolution that would mandate the Assad government to hand over all of its chemical weapons.