So how is the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — a.k.a. “the Iran nuclear deal” — going?

Since it was implemented in January, various Western companies have been rushing to do business with Tehran. Airbus has already agreed to sell 118 civilian aircraft in a multibillion dollar deal. In return Iran is selling billions of dollars’ worth of oil to European firms and other clients.

Iran also held parliamentary elections which, if you believe the headlines, elected lots of “moderates.” In truth, as Reuel Gerecht points out, the real moderates — those who want Iran to become a genuine democracy, not a theocracy — were barred from running. The so-called moderates who won support Iran’s terrorist state and are anyway powerless to affect that state’s operations, since real power is exercised by the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

It is thus no surprise that Iran continues to support the Bashar Assad regime, which has killed the vast majority of the estimated 470,000 dead in Syria’s civil war. And no real surprise that Iran this week has test-fired two more ballistic missiles with a range of 1,200 miles — more than sufficient to hit any point in Israel, which is only 600 miles from Iran. To make sure that no one missed the point, the IRGC commanders responsible for the missile tests stenciled on the missiles — in Hebrew! — the words “Israel must be wiped off the map.” Subtle, huh?

Now it is up to the Obama administration to show whether it will respond to this provocation. Such missile tests are in violation of United Nations sanctions. After the last such tests, in October, the administration waited until after the implementation of the JCPOA and the release of American hostages to impose pinprick sanctions on Iran in late January. Those sanctions obviously did not impose a real cost on Iran, or else it would not have proceeded with this week’s provocative tests.

This is a pattern we have seen before — recall how the Assad regime, Iran’s client, progressively used chemical weapons in ever-larger doses, testing the U.S. reaction and discovering time and again that this administration was not prepared to impose a serious cost for violations of international law. Iran is likewise testing to see if the U.S. will get tough. If it discovers that no serious response is forthcoming, expect Iran to flout the terms of the JCPOA in the months and years to come.