U.S. President Donald Trump “needs to find an off ramp” from the war with Iran as soon as possible, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro said on the Haaretz Podcast.

While Shapiro said the military results of the war – the decimation of Iranian military assets and elimination of top leaders – are “incredibly impressive,” the United States must recognize that “the weaker party has cards to play, and their cards grow more influential as this conflict drags on,” pointing to the choking of world oil supply in the Strait of Hormuz, draining of U.S. and Israeli anti-missile resources, and attacks by proxies and terrorist groups. 

Shapiro, who was ambassador from 2011–2017, said he wants regime change in Iran, but “not through a military campaign. That's not really something we're capable of at any acceptable cost.”

Additionally, he warns, a fall of the Iranian regime will spark “a great deal of chaos, a great deal of spillover of instability to neighboring countries, perhaps a civil war, waves of terror outside of Iran” and more.

“All of that has the potential to suck the United States in much further to the whole region. I could imagine that this is not a high concern for Israelis. Israelis could live with that set of concerns in ways that the United States and the American people will maybe feel differently about and certainly have not been prepared for.” 

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