As this report makes clear, financial sanctions on Iran may be less than they are cracked up to be:

In its latest proposed set of tougher United Nations sanctions on Iran, the U.S. is again relying on asset freezes as one tool to pressure the country not to build nuclear weapons. But a close look at how much Iranian money has been frozen to date in the U.S. under existing sanctions shows that the total amount is surprisingly small, less than $43 million, or roughly a quarter of what Iran earns in oil revenue in a single day. . .

“It’s peanuts,” says Jeremy P. Carver, a British attorney who has advised governments on implementing sanctions. “It’s not going to really change a thing.”

U.S. officials do not dispute that current amounts of frozen Iranian assets seem small. In some cases, Iran has shifted the money outside the U.S. or EU to avoid sanctions. The officials emphasize that their strategy is not to seize many assets, but to pressure Iran to change its ways by making it extremely difficult for it to do business.

But how difficult are we really making business for the mullahs? After all — reset or no reset — the Russians are helping to build their nuclear reactor. And as the report notes, we aren’t even sure what assets are being frozen and what impact it is having, if at all, on Iran’s nuclear program. Nor is it clear we are really seizing much of anything:

Adding new Iranian entities to the U.S. list of firms or individuals subject to freezing doesn’t necessarily mean any money actually gets seized, even though news accounts often report that funds were frozen. Most Iranian businesses or individuals haven’t kept money in the U.S. for years because of past sanctions and the strained relations between the two countries. “It would be very surprising to see very large amounts of blocked assets in a recent designation of an Iranian entity,” says Mr. Szubin.

And all of this is what we are largely relying on to dissuade the mullahs from doing what they very dearly want to do — become a nuclear power. Needless to say, the means seem grossly inadequate to the ends. After all, round after round of UN sanctions have had no measurable impact on the mullahs. So naturally we order up another batch of sanctions. (“As the Iranian government has not ceased its nuclear activities, and defiantly has been enriching uranium, the U.S. has been pressing Security Council members for a new set of sanctions that, among other things, include additional asset freezes.”)

The Obami have been promising to move from engagement to crippling sanctions, but there is substantial reason to question what, if anything, is to be gained by sanctions so limited that they are virtually irrelevant to the mullahs’ calculated self-interest. Absent something far more meaningful than the measures currently contemplated by the Obami, the mullahs will simply gain more time and more breathing room to acquire their nuclear weapons.