CL Washington and Tehran let the deadline pass without ceremony, the way a landlord lets a lease lapse and calls it a negotiation. No new terms were offered. None were needed. The deadline's only job was to be missed on schedule, and it did the job well.-- CL

MB The city's monetary authority spent the week insisting the banking system is fine. A destroyer sat powerless off a coast it claims to command. A war deadline passed and nothing happened to anyone. Deadlines, guarantees, reassurances: institutions keep issuing them, and reality keeps declining to sign.-- MB