Likewise, it is possible that Iran might lessen its backing for Hamas, the most intransigent Palestinian group, if offered the right diplomatic inducements.
On every front, Obama is challenging the G.O.P.'s most intransigent interest groups.
Regional and social divisions have bred intransigent interest groups whose demands cannot often be reconciled by a fragmented political system.
Skeptics abound, in part because some of the most intransigent political groups, like the Houthis and the southern separatists, refuse to participate.
The man who is said to be Eta's top military commander was arrested in France early yesterday, in a Franco-Spanish police operation that produced eight further detentions and dealt a heavy blow to Europe's most intransigent armed separatist group.
Political representation could give them greater sway over the gunmen and women although in the past ETA has commanded and the politicians followed.Some fear the emergence of an intransigent, hard-core group equivalent to the Real IRA in Northern Ireland, adding another decade to the Basque country's 50-year history of separatist violence.
One simply does not learn from this story why the group seems so intransigent about its unwillingness to relocate, disband or accept an end to American protection.
Donald Wolfensberger, the director of the Congress Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, who was an aide to House Republicans for 28 years, said, "There is greater brinkmanship on the debt limit this year because there is a hard-core group that is more intransigent".
She and her group have faced down an intransigent council – and done more than perhaps any other campaign group this year to force social housing up the political agenda.
To listen to their protestations to the press and police, one would think that they were innocent victims of an assault orchestrated by extremist non-Muslim elements who had hijacked the event and free speech but the members of the group proved themselves to be intransigent, obstreperous, aggressive and childish.
