Press reports suggest that President Obama has ordered a review of Syria strategy (though the White House is denying this). He has already made it clear that he does not favor direct U.S. intervention in Syria. While Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has lost large swathes of territory to a rebellion that has so far cost the lives of 200,000 Syrians, he shows no signs of giving up. What is worse, the chaos in Syria and neighboring Iraq has given rise to a virulent jihadist movement in the form of the Islamic State (IS), which has conquered vast territory throughout the region.

The options such a review would produce are unlikely to change policy anytime soon. This is not only because there are no good ones out there that can transform the situation, but also because the Syrian crisis has become part of a larger global struggle with Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s potential countermoves, especially in Ukraine, serve as a deterrent to American action in Syria.

Here are some of the options Obama’s advisers would likely present him.

1. Maintain the current policy of concentrating on IS, because it constitutes a threat to Iraq, a country that is far more important and consequential to the United States. Iraq is oil rich, borders Iran, and, if it fell into the hands of IS, would trigger a region-wide inter-ethnic and inter-sectarian conflagration the likes of which we have never seen. By contrast, Syria is far less important; it has never been an economic or military power. Its only asset has come from Bashar’s father’s Hafez al-Assad’s deft use of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The current policy is to intervene in Syria to support those fighting IS, such as the Kurds in Kobani (despite the objections of Turkey, which wants to see the Kurds defeated more than it wants to see IS defeated), as a model for Iraq specifically. The Iraqi military—including forces loyal to both the central government and the Kurdistan Regional Government in the north—need to see that resistance with U.S. air power can push IS back.

This is not a short-term solution. It requires patience and a great deal of investment in the Iraqi and Kurdish military forces in the form of training and arms. Just as in Kobani, reports that Iraqi forces retook the oil refinery of Baiji show that this strategy can work. This means that involvement in Syria should remain limited to the training of the “moderate” opposition forces and support for anyone who is fighting IS, other than the regime itself. The Assad regime has elected not to engage IS forces precisely because the latter are targeting his enemies, the moderate opposition.

2. Conduct limited airstrikes against regime targets, and establish safe zones on Syria’s borders to accommodate rebels and refugees—both of which moves are designed to weaken the regime militarily and show its supporters that time has run out. This is what many in Congress and the Turkish government have been pushing the administration to do. This would be a unilateral action unsanctioned by the United Nations.

A U.S. or NATO operation could be mounted with relative ease from bases in Turkey and aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean. However, the likelihood of civilian deaths by American bombs is unlikely to win the U.S. any friends, especially if the regime were to use these deaths to further galvanize its allies Iran, Russia, and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement. Another factor to consider is how the primarily Shi’a Iraqi government and the Shi’a militias, would react given their own sympathies for their sectarian kin, the Syrian Alawites.

More worrisome for Washington is Russia’s reaction. Putin could opt to both help Syrian air defenses shoot down American aircraft and to use a non-UN approved American action as justification to invade eastern Ukraine and repeat the land grab in Crimea. This of course is far more dangerous and would create a crisis in Europe that would potentially undermine everything NATO stands for. Syria, to be frank, is not worth a crisis of this magnitude in Europe.

3. Finally, the Obama administration could ramp up its diplomacy, in conjunction with option number one, to shake the Syrian regime to its foundations. The regime’s base, both in territory and population, has shrunk dramatically. A smaller and smaller segment of the population is being asked to shoulder a heavier and heavier burden to fight the rebellion. Even if the moderate opposition is defeated, IS will remain; sooner or later the regime and IS will go at each other. The U.S. first has to dispel any illusion that Assad’s entourage and his supporters have that America will ever help the regime fight IS. The widely publicized massacre of Syrian soldiers at the hands of IS in Raqqa has already sent shockwaves among Assad’s supporters.

The rebellion will not end in Syria as long as Assad remains in power. Hence the administration could try promising to work with members of Assad’s entourage—including working with them against IS—if Assad were to be pushed out. The Iranians could also be enticed to join a solution that didn’t include Assad but maintained some sort of Alawite influence, directly or in the form of a federal arrangement. With oil prices on the decline, Iran can ill afford to subsidize Assad indefinitely.

There is no easy solution in Syria. Direct military action is fraught with dangers. Patience and a smarter diplomatic strategy will serve the U.S. best.

Henri J. Barkey is professor of international relations at Lehigh University.