Terrible meal in Alaska, say, leads to impasse (9)
I believe the answer is:
stalemate
'impasse' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'terrible meal in alaska say' is the wordplay.
'terrible' indicates an anagram.
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'alaska say' becomes 'state' (alaska is a kind of state).
'meal' is an anagram of 'lema'.
'lema' going into 'state' is 'STALEMATE'.
'leads to' is the link.
(Other definitions for stalemate that I've seen before include "situation without a winner" , "Possible outcome of chess game" , "Chess game deadlock" , "where moving is impossible" , "Situation offering no way forward" .)