WASHINGTON — The disintegration of diplomatic talks with Russia has left the Obama administration with an array of bad options for what to do next in Syria.

Despite harrowing scenes of violence in Aleppo and beyond, President Barack Obama is unlikely to approve any dramatic shift in strategy before handing the civil war over to his successor early next year.

The options under discussion at the White House — limited military strikes, sanctions, more weapons for rebels, multi-party talks — have one thing in common: None appears likely to halt the bloodshed in the short-term. The more aggressive proposals come with the added risk of pulling the U.S. into direct military confrontation with Russia, a threat illuminated by a string of recent taunts from Moscow.

Obama has wrestled for years with the Syria crisis and is deeply reluctant to entangle the U.S. in another Mideast war. After insisting the only viable path forward was U.S.-Russia-brokered talks that have since fallen apart, Obama faces the prospect of leaving office as a bystander to a carnage that has killed an estimated 500,000 people and created 11 million refugees — half of Syria’s pre-war population.

“Obama’s practically lame-duck status only reinforces the argument for maintaining the current policy,” said Jonathan Stevenson, a former senior Mideast adviser to the president. “It’s true, of course, that presidents on their way out are not always risk-averse, but maybe they should be.”