(CNN) -- In 2009, a freshly elected U.S. president who campaigned on the themes of hope and change appointed a veteran negotiator to take a crack at the Israel-Palestinian conflict.





Now, 32 months after President Barack Obama named former Sen. George Mitchell as his chief Middle East envoy, the peace process is stalled and the United States faces the diplomatically dangerous possibility of having to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution on Palestinian statehood.





How did it get to this point? The answers are in the intractable nature of the conflict, political pressures faced by the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships, and a steady waning of U.S. influence in the region, exacerbated by the Arab Spring protests that erupted last December.





Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Monday he intends to submit an application for statehood to the Security Council, according to U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky, setting up a possible vote as soon as Friday.





U.S. officials have made clear they will veto it, affirming the longstanding backing for Israel, the nation's strongest Middle East ally.





Meanwhile, behind-the-scenes negotiations are seeking to avoid a move certain to evoke Arab protests of American bias and even hypocrisy.





A U.S. veto would amount to Washington blocking an outcome it has publicly supported -- the creation of a Palestinian state next to Israel. However, the Obama administration insists that result must occur through a negotiated deal with Israel.





"We continue to believe and are pressing the point that the only way to a two-state solution, which is what we support and want to see happen, is through negotiations," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said late Monday.





Addressing the possible Palestinian statehood bid, she added that "no matter what does or doesn't happen, this will not produce the kind of outcome that everyone is hoping for, so we are going to stay very much engaged and focused."





Also Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was willing to meet with Abbas in New York to launch direct talks that would continue back in the Middle East after the U.N. General Assembly.





Netanyahu's offer was an obvious attempt to give Abbas a plausible reason to put off the statehood bid, an outcome desired by the United States.





"For President Obama, who came into office speaking about self-determination and promised the Palestinians that it's a new day and a new dawn for them, to go to the Security Council and cast a veto against the Palestinian state is politically problematic," Fouad Ajami, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute think tank, said Monday on CNN.





"It's really a catastrophe for him in the Arab world, but he has no choice but to pass the veto if it came to that," Ajami continued. "The hope is (that) between now and Friday, some exit, some other formula will be found to spare one and all in this confrontation at the Security Council."





Fran Townsend, a CNN contributor on national security issues, said the potential U.N. vote "puts the United States in a very awkward position."





"It is a veto that will most certainly undermine U.S. credibility as an honest broker in the peace process," at least in the eyes of the Arab world, Townsend said.





The latest developments come five months after Mitchell's resignation. He said he only signed up to tackle the world's toughest diplomatic job for two years, but he was clearly frustrated by the inability to restart direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.





Mitchell, who was 77 when he stepped down, traveled back and forth in the region trying to overcome the decades of hostility and mistrust that bedeviled the peace process. Face-to-face negotiations sought by the United States and its mediating partners from the United Nations, European Union and Russia never materialized.





The Obama administration came into office hoping to seduce the Middle East with a more sensitive and compassionate posture after eight years of the Bush administration that brought war in Iraq and tough posturing against Iran and other enemies of Israel.





In June 2009, Obama used a high-profile speech in Cairo
What are they trying to avoid What will Palenstinians submit to the UN? Will they veto the bill Who is the US backing through negotiations? What are they trying to avoid evoking?
a move certain to evoke Arab protests of American bias and even hypocrisy. an application for statehood to the Security Council, it, Israel, Arab protests of American bias and even hypocrisy.
question: What are they trying to avoid, answer: a move certain to evoke Arab protests of American bias and even hypocrisy. | question: What will Palenstinians submit to the UN?, answer: an application for statehood to the Security Council, | question: Will they veto the bill, answer: it, | question: Who is the US backing through negotiations?, answer: Israel, | question: What are they trying to avoid evoking?, answer: Arab protests of American bias and even hypocrisy.