Anthony Zurcher
North America correspondent

One explanation for Donald Trump’s unexpected
and expansive proposal for resolving the Gaza situation is that he is a
second-term president and, like many of his predecessors, his thoughts are
increasingly turning to how the history books will remember him.

An area where presidents typically have broad
authority, and can burnish their legacy, is foreign policy.

With narrow
majorities in Congress, any legislation Trump supports in the months ahead is
going to face a tough road to passage – and will probably include sometimes unpleasant
compromises.

With each passing day, Trump’s domestic
authority will diminish, as his own party begins to look toward first toward
next year’s midterm congressional elections and, ultimately, to a new
standard-bearer in the 2028 presidential contest.

A dramatic foreign policy breakthrough, however,
is something Trump and his White House team could seek on their own – akin to
Ronald Reagan’s negotiations with the Soviets in his second term or Bill
Clinton’s ill-fated Wye River meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu and Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority.

The Middle East isn’t Trump’s only foreign
policy interest – his ongoing ambitions for acquiring Greenland, for instance,
signal an alternative avenue for legacy-building.

But his successful brokering
of the Abraham Accords at the end of his first term may give him reason to
think he can pull off another diplomatic success in the region, even if his
first steps in that direction this time around have already met stiff
resistance.