President Obama reportedly told John Kerry that he was free to disregard the Iran deadline, anonymous officials told The New York Times, after Iran tried to leverage the looming date for more concessions in the talks. Instead, Kerry was told to play hardball with the Islamic Republic, showing that a nuclear deal is no more important to Obama than it is to Iran’s own leadership. The deadline set for the latest stage of negotiations came and went Tuesday, and was extended to the end of June.
