Ian Bremmer

“Syria: Towards the Endgame” was the headline the Economist splashed across one of its most recent covers. But as we’ve seen with this week’s assault on Aleppo, the end of the Assad regime is, in all likelihood, not even close. Let’s unpack why and enumerate the ways:

1. China’s and Russia’s vetoes

The two countries vetoed the most recent U.N. Security Council resolution, which would have authorized sanctions against Assad’s government as a result of its repeated failures to adhere to promises to bring peace to the nation. While the result is disappointing for the Syrian people, the effect of the vetoes of China and Russia is twofold. First, the U.N. obviously has been robbed of one of the tools it uses to protect citizens of oppressive regimes. But second, the impact of the veto, coming from two countries that have up-and-down relationships with the U.S., serves to turn any American interventionism into an international incident.

Let’s be clear: This is playing politics on a global, humanitarian scale. We always knew that Russia and China would not support a U.S. intervention in Syria, not even in the way they grudgingly did when it came to Libya. But ultimately, the bloodshed there is not just on their hands. While Obama has cover for his hands-off foreign policy thanks to the veto, U.N. resolutions have hardly stopped or even influenced U.S. foreign policy in the past, especially when it mattered.

2. Even without vetoes, the U.S. has no stomach for intervention

It’s messy. It’s expensive. There’s no domestic constituency for it. The U.S. is still reeling from the price tag of the Iraq war, and still extricating itself from Afghanistan. But more important than whether we have the stomach for an overseas campaign is our lack of a solution or an exit strategy. It’s not clear at all who could successfully replace the Assad regime. We don’t know what would come after him. There’s always the possibility that some internal assassination or bombing could take him out. But as long as he has his military apparatus, he’s going to be able to smash any attempt by opposition forces to gain strength against him. There’s simply nothing rising up in Syria that might take Assad’s place. So, the question of freedom for Syrians turns very sadly pragmatic indeed: What, exactly, would we be fighting for?

3. The civil war in Syria has begun, and it’s dragging the region with it.

As in countries across the Middle East, the civil war here is rooted in ethnic identity: Shiite vs. Sunni Muslims. The Shiite minority holds power. The Sunni population has been oppressed. The answer to the question of who should be running Syria, other than that it should not be a murderous dictator, is entirely unclear. What is clear is that other countries are experiencing tensions and internal strife thanks to the bloodshed there. Turkey and Qatar have interests in the outcome. China and Russia, and the United States, have investments and interests in the area. By proxy, U.S. relationships could also face further deterioration as the Syria conflict drags on.

There was a time when the U.S. would race to the rescue, playing world cop on the global stage, and attempt to intervene and end strife. It would lead a peloton of countries toward the outcome it thought was most desirable, and it would commit, in blood and treasure, whatever it took to get the job done. Whether for better or for worse, in our new G-Zero world that sort of thing just doesn’t happen anymore. We can blame the U.N., Russia, China, and Syria itself all we want, but the reality is, the U.S. has decided it’s just not getting involved.

This essay is based on a transcribed interview with Bremmer.

PHOTO: Syrian soldiers celebrate after their entry to al-Midan neighborhood in Damascus, July 20, 2012. REUTERS/Stringer

We can’t afford to throw him out.

Last week, likely GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney caused a tempest in a teapot when he told CNN that he thought the top U.S. geopolitical foe is Russia. President Obama’s White House seized on the comment, rebutting that al Qaeda is actually our top foe abroad. But if we look at the way American foreign policy has been enacted since the beginnings of the global crisis, it’s clear that America’s biggest opponent on the world stage is really itself.

Take what’s going on in Syria as the most recent example. That country’s leader, Bashar al-Assad, continues to tease the world’s diplomats by claiming to want peace for his people, yet he cracks down with unfettered abandon on their protests against his oppressive regime. Having just agreed to yet another peace plan, a troop withdrawal by Apr. 10, it’s clear he’ll find some way around his latest bargain, as he always has. What’s even more shocking is that the peace deal, negotiated by Kofi Annan, did not even call for Assad to leave power, which to outside eyes seems like a precondition for any sort of success. And the absence of the demand that Assad go is squarely due to the U.S.’s refusal to back it up with the sort of severe consequences it used to dole out: military strikes, preemptive wars and overwhelming use of force. For the U.S., at least for now, those days are over. And Washington won’t make foreign policy promises it can’t or doesn’t intend to keep.

After all, consider the fall of Gaddafi in Libya. Here was a decades-long enemy of the U.S. whose people rose up against him in a huge insurgency. His people lived in a backward state while he enriched himself with billions of stolen dollars. To borrow a phrase, the case for his deposal was a slam-dunk. Yet even this most climactic act of the Arab Spring did not draw out a single ground-troop commitment from the Obama administration. The U.S., in fact, only ran about 10 percent of the total NATO bombing runs over Libya – not exactly the type of campaign the U.S. military is used to making against brutal dictators with bad reputations who antagonize it.

So what’s changed? Well, first it’s worth noting that while Libya was a lost cause, Syria has been a pawn in a larger proxy war in the Middle East being fought in the U.N. Security Council chambers, with Russia and China blocking every U.S. move to force Assad out. Second, even though the Gulf Coordinating Council is eager for U.S. help in Syria (and with containing Iran, and all its other problems), there is obviously fatigue over the amount of blood and treasure that’s been committed to the region by the country over the years, one that Obama is sensitive to. He’s going to support the GCC, but he’s not going to fight its battles unless the American interests in them are great and unmistakable.

But perhaps the real reason the U.S. is not leaping into the breach is because its own house is not yet in order. The U.S. still has high domestic unemployment and a structural debt problem, thanks to years of reduced tax revenue and the prosecution of two expensive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Americans are bracing for a summer oil shock that everyone seems to know is coming. All this is what has led us to the world’s present G-Zero condition: The U.S. isn’t in Syria because, among other reasons, it simply can’t afford it. This is a symptom of a leaderless world.

Whether you think America’s habit of leaping into foreign conflicts is good or bad, here’s the reality of how tepid U.S. support of the insurgency in Syria will play out: Assad will find a way to keep military control over Syria, even as his support from other leaders in the region withers. (Former ally Turkey, for example, has turned strongly against Assad’s government.) Meanwhile, Syrian citizens will continue to push for a popular uprising, which will lead to more violence in the streets. But without U.S. backing, neither Saudia Arabia nor Turkey – nor any other country in the Middle East that wants to see Assad gone – will dare go in alone. We’re reaching the limit, in other words, of kicking this particular can down the road. The stalling won’t work, the humanitarian crisis will get worse, and by the end of the year, Assad will most likely still be in power, and many more people in Syria will be dead because of it. The probability of a successful outcome in Syria is falling off a cliff.

The world is looking for the U.S. to get its house in order so that it can pay attention to global affairs again. The Arab League, NATO, the United Nations, and many others are beseeching Washington to play a role. In fact, the U.S. is playing one, but it’s nothing like what it’s been typecast for. To be sure, American diplomats are active, but they are doing things differently than the U.S. has done them in a very long time. We’re never going back to a pre-2008 world, the one where the U.S.’s “cowboy mentality” defined its foreign policy. Whether that change is good or bad – right now it looks like a little of both – the bottom line is the U.S. just can’t afford to be that cowboy.

This essay is based on a transcribed interview with Bremmer.