At their final negotiating round before Paris, countries managed to whittle the draft text down to a manageable 50 pages or so – albeit by preserving as many as four separate options on the most intractable questions, and putting off the hard choices for Paris.
But the most intractable questions are these: Why do we have to have private pensions at all when they involve so much of our contributions being gambled away on the stock market or funnelled into bonuses for fund managers, while the value of our pensions pots have been eroded?
In the same way, evolutionary biologists have pondered one of their most intractable questions: how much of the living world is here by chance, and might not evolve, if time were turned back and evolutionary history played out again?
Call it a stroke of genius or a gamble, the Bush administration had decided that the way to accomplish this is not through the conventional route of deepening cooperation in the areas where there is a convergence of views, but tackle head-on the most intractable impediment: the question of nuclear proliferation.
Mr Cameron's response was to jolt the debate in London onto the West Lothian Question, the most intractable of his MPs' bugbears.
There were unconfirmed reports on Friday night that one of the most intractable of the outstanding issues, the question of Iran's right in principle to enrich uranium, had been resolved with the drafting of a form of words in the draft agreement that satisfied both sides.
Insofar as the Consequence argument has pointed us in the direction of these deep and difficult underlying metaphysical questions, it represents a significant step forward in the discussion of one of the most intractable problems of philosophy.
But the most intractable problem of all remained the economy.
Heroin is among the most immediate — and the most intractable — social, economic, and political problems.
Among the most intractable of those obstacles, said three officials close to the talks, was Mr. Micheletti.
