Mark Grimaldi, Executive Producer of The Leslie Marshall Show, guest hosts for Leslie this hour.

He's joined by Ambassador Gary A. Grappo, who served numerous assignments at the State Department in Washington, D.C. as well as postings in Nicaragua, Portugal, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Oman (twice), Iraq and Jerusalem.

The two discuss the implications of the Syrian city of Aleppo being almost completely surrounded by pro-Assad ground forces (backed by Russian airstrikes), including what is likely to happen to the 300,000 civilians in the city.
They also discuss how the Syrian Refugee crisis has affected the European Union.

Ambassador Grappo held a number of senior positions in the State Department including U.S. Ambassador to the Sultanate of Oman; Minister Counselor for Political Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, and Charge' d’Affaires and Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Recently, he was named a distinguished Fellow at the Center for Middle East Studies of the Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver.

Mark Grimaldi's Twitter handle is @MarkJGrimaldi.

(Image Credit: AlJazeera.com)