This was an exaggeration. No one has come closer to achieving peace than Clinton, and it is at least somewhat plausible that, had Rabin lived, and had the Palestinians been led by someone other than Arafat, Clinton would today be known as the man who brought an end to the Middle East’s 100‑year war. He also would almost certainly belong to an elite club, composed of the other senior-most living Democrats—Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, and Barack Obama—all of whom are recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize. Exclusion from this group cannot please such a competitive man.

And yet no one I’ve encountered believes that Clinton pursued peace merely for acclaim. People who know him say he remains preoccupied with the issue today. “This is unfinished business for him,” Clinton’s former Middle East negotiator, Dennis Ross, told me. In particular, Clinton is said to be troubled that he could not achieve for the martyred Rabin what Rabin had tried to achieve himself.

Sometimes, however, life provides second chances.

I recognize that what I’m about to propose will seem presumptuous. But I believe that events may be organizing themselves in such a way as to provide Bill Clinton with one more mission. If elected, his wife will, like all other presidents of the past 40 years, at some point probably find it necessary, or advisable, or even desirable, to attempt to solve the unsolvable conflict. She would have her choice of negotiators, but the only living person the antagonists would find, to their chagrin, impossible to ignore is Bill Clinton, a figure of singular stature in the Middle East. President Obama, after intermittent and tactically flawed attempts to ignite the peace process, has alienated many Israelis and disappointed many Palestinians. Bill Clinton, however, is the sui generis president who left office widely popular on both sides of the divide. Assigning Bill the role of super-negotiator (deputies would have to lay the groundwork for a revived process, and manage its numberless intricacies) could provide Hillary with her best chance of success.

Assigning Bill this task could also take care of another potential problem for Hillary: a pressing need to get him out of the house.

I am writing this article in the courtyard of East Jerusalem’s American Colony Hotel, one of the loveliest places on Earth, and an epicenter of intrigue during the glory days of the peace process, in the 1990s. Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, set himself up here during his lengthy, unsuccessful term as a Middle East peace negotiator starting in 2007. There’s no reason the U.S. government couldn’t rent much of the place out for Bill Clinton. I think he would enjoy it very much, and my guess is that Hillary, and in particular her top aides, might enjoy having him here as well.

Now to the assumptions built into this idea. Leave aside the most obvious of these—that Hillary Clinton will win the presidency, and that Bill Clinton could be persuaded to devote himself once again to this frustrating, exhausting work. (It is one thing to consider the cause of peace unfinished business; it is another to want to finish the business yourself.)