While second guessing US president Donald Trump's often impulsive decisions can be fraught with difficulty, the test of self-interest usually serves as a handy guide.
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Wednesday's announcement America will reverse decades of foreign policy by recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital and relocate its embassy from Tel Aviv to the Holy City makes sense when viewed through the prism of American domestic politics.
The Trump administration, which will celebrate a year in office next month, has been taking a battering.
The president, whose approval rating is approaching near record lows at just 37.9 per cent, has moved significantly further down the long and winding road towards possible impeachment over the last few weeks.
There are now strong suggestions he may have actively obstructed justice in the case of Michael Flynn, his former national security adviser. Mr Flynn recently pleaded guilty to charges he lied to the FBI about conversations with the Russian Ambassador ahead of the election.
Mr Trump then tweeted he had fired Flynn because he knew the staffer had lied to the FBI. This contradicted earlier Presidential tweets saying Flynn had been fired for misleading Vice President, Mike Pence, about the conversations.
Given Mr Trump had also pressured then FBI director, James Comey, to drop the investigation into Flynn and, when that did not happen, fired Comey, it is fair to say the whole affair is messy. It seems unlikely this will end well for the former reality TV star whose "you're fired" tag line may come back to haunt him.
The usual questions, made famous during Watergate, of "what did the President know?" and "When did he know it?" are now being asked by all and sundry.
This means it makes sense, given an apparent pause in the hostilities with Kim Jong-un, to start a diversionary brush fire somewhere a long way away.
The Middle East is an obvious choice given the predictable over-reactions any unexpected changes in America's policy positions in that part of the world are sure to evoke.
Jerusalem is sacred to three of the world's great religions, Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Israel's sovereignty over the city, in which members of all these faiths worship virtually side-by-side, is hotly disputed.
Mr Trump's decision, which he claims belatedly honours a campaign promise to his fundamentalist Christian supporters, has already angered Muslims around the globe. There are fears it could provoke violence and bloodshed and further destabilise Israeli-Palestinian peace initiatives.
A cynic would suggest that if all hell is breaking loose in Jerusalem, voters aren't paying as much attention to what's going down in Washington as they otherwise might be.
Mr Trump had an excellent opportunity to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital, which is a big shot in the arm for the Israeli Government, when he visited that country in May.
He chose not to do, subsequently signing a waiver that deferred a commitment he was clearly backing away from.
This isn't about diplomacy; it's about President Trump's survival.
