According to Senator Edward Kennedy, we are now in a seemingly intractable quagmire, a judgment that is rejected by General George Casey, the US military commander in Iraq.
His has been a triumph of ambition over intractable matter, a fulfilment of Mahler's faith in Arthur Schopenhauer's idea that the human will can overcome any force on earth.
On the other hand, the way opposing political parties and leaders managed to work alongside one another in both Zimbabwe and Kenya has shown there is a way of resolving what might appear to be intractable problems without holding a country to ransom.
But Cyprus is also the EU's most intractable puzzle, a rich country fringed by a separatist northern backwater with the potential to inflame the eastern Mediterranean.
Animal rights in New Zealand remains a nearly intractable dilemma, given the economic divers, historic way of life for many, and a paradigm slow to shift, as in nearly every other country.
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The fiscal and economic challenges are conspicuous: a substantial and intractable gap between public spending and tax revenues in the US at a time of anaemic economic growth.
You can tell a conflict is intractable when you ask the parties to say something nice about the other and all you get is a stream of invective.
Many members of Congress hailed the program as an inspired solution to what had been a seemingly intractable national problem.
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Yet as recent incidents and reports make clear, it's a particularly intractable problem in the military, with its enduring macho culture and unique legal system.
That intractable question could threaten a trade war, as the United States and the European Union squabble over the best way to protect personal data.
Oddly, this is a more intractable problem than transmission at birth.
Emotionally and socially engaged ecoliteracy offers a process for engaging in what otherwise might seem like intractable issues as well as offering a lively form of education.
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The shift marks the latest attempt by city officials to address a seemingly intractable problem: How to create equity in the admissions process for its gifted and talented program, which begins in kindergarten and goes through third grade.
Well, in one example, I would rather bet on a population of start-ups--a rich ecology, if you would--to solve the big intractable problems of this world instead of a single large corporation, a monoculture.
The failure of Hostess, due to intractable labour concerns, caused a fear that the much loved snack cakes produced for many years might vanish from store shelves.
Deep depression is so intractable that even electroshock therapy takes a week to kick in.
Simpson says the region's problems may seem intractable, but there's a hopeful precedent for an eventual solution.
The most intractable flash point may stem from a quiet trend that has not yet made headlines: Chinese companies and government-sponsored investment vehicles are increasingly purchasing U.S. assets.
Yeltsin, Zorkin and Khasbulatov have worked in the past, this one only served to make most parliamentarians more intractable in their determination to preserve a largely centrally-controlled system and their privileged positions.
And in a world rich in seemingly intractable problems, we need the dynamism and growth of real innovation.
And there is a bigger and probably more intractable obstacle: farming is booming.
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Massive greed and consequent massive human misery and suffering do not have to be accepted as a givens, unavoidable, intractable, irresolvable.
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But being born under the wrong road sign is a different and perhaps even more intractable problem.
Since starting his job as secretary of state in February, Mr Kerry has devoted most of his energy to the Middle East and has also indicated climate change is a priority for him - two intractable issues for different reasons.
Population provides a further example of movement from the intractable to the trivial.
Only a few generations earlier, their ancestors had been living a desperate, penurious life in the intractable deserts of northern Arabia.
The negotiations will have to unravel a thicket of issues that have been intractable for ages, and that impede freer trade.
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The problems we face as a society can often seem daunting and intractable, and in this country, perhaps none more than the health of our citizens.
The industry already had a work load compression problem but making the default entity choice an S corporation with a December year end made the problem intractable.
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