How’s the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the Iranian nuclear deal is formally going? About as expected — at least by the deal’s skeptics.

Iran is still refusing to come clean with the International Atomic Energy Agency about its past nuclear activities, but the Obama administration is beginning the process of lifting sanctions anyway. As the Wall Street Journal noted: “That final assessment, which the IAEA is aiming to complete by December 15th, is not a prerequisite for implementation day,” a senior U.S. official said Saturday. “We are not in a position to evaluate the quality… of the data. That is between Iran and the IAEA.” Translation: the U.S. is throwing the IAEA — the agency that is supposed to monitor compliance with the JCPOA — under the bus.

The administration seems equally unperturbed that Iran has just tested a medium-range ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead in defiance of United Nations sanctions. “After reviewing the available information, we can confirm that Iran launched on Oct. 10 a medium-range ballistic missile inherently capable of delivering a nuclear weapon,” America’s ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, said. “This was a clear violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1929.”

So what is the US going to do about it? “The United States is preparing a report on the incident for the Security Council’s Iran Sanctions Committee and will raise the matter directly with Security Council members ‘in the coming days,’ Power said.”

I’m sure that will terrify the Iranians. Naturally the administration has concluded that this missile test is no violation of the JCPOA, which may be technically true, but what does it say about Iran’s desire to abide by future agreements when it is so flagrantly violating its existing international obligations?

This is only the latest example of how Iran is giving America and the world the middle finger — signaling that it remains as defiant and lawless as ever notwithstanding the JCPOA. Another sign of this is Iran’s continuing determination to hold Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian in prison. Rather than backing down, Tehran is piling on.

As the New York Times noted: “An influential Iranian lawmaker delivered inflammatory new accusations on Monday against Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post’s Tehran reporter convicted of espionage this month, asserting that he had plotted with seditionists. In an interview with Iran’s semiofficial Fars News Agency, the lawmaker, Javad Karimi-Qoddusi, also sought to depict Mr. Rezaian as a nefarious spy who had used his credentials as a journalist as a ruse to gain insights that would be valuable to the Iranian government’s enemies.”

These allegations are, of course, absurd. Rezaian is a hostage, nothing more. And yet, the Obama administration is too timid to even forcefully demand his release as the price of lifting sanctions.

Meanwhile, Iran is stepping up its proxy war across the region. In Syria, Iranian “volunteers” — similar to the Chinese “volunteers” that entered the Korean War in 1950 — are now reported to be leading the fight to retake Aleppo from rebel forces on behalf of its client, Bashar Assad. Just in the past week along, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has lost four senior officers in Syria, an indication of the kind of commitment it is making.

In Iraq, Iranian-backed Shiite militias along with some Iranian-penetrated Iraqi security forces announced that they had taken the oil refinery at Baiji from ISIS with the help of American air support —another instance of the U.S. backing rather than opposing Iran’s power play.

In short, we are seeing that hopes that the JCPOA would somehow spark a transformation in Iranian behavior are, at best, ludicrously premature. Iran is more of a menace than ever, and that’s even before sanctions come off. Imagine how much of a threat it will be once it has an extra $100 billion to play with, and that day is coming soon because the administration has made clear to implement the deal no matter how much evidence of Iran’s bad behavior piles up.