If you want another example of vanishing U.S. deterrence (see nearby), consider the Biden Administration’s failure to stop Iran from providing Russia with ballistic missiles.

Citing unidentified U.S. and European officials, the Journal reports that a recent arms shipment from Tehran to Moscow included hundreds of short-range ballistic missiles. Iranian lawmaker Ahmad Bakhshayesh Ardestani this week described how “one part of the barter” with Russia “includes sending missiles” in exchange for food exports and help with sanctions evasion.

The authoritarian axis now flaunts how it ignores U.S. warnings. Last month State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel said such a missile shipment would “represent a dramatic escalation in Iran’s support for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.” The U.S. and its G-7 and NATO partners “are prepared to deliver a swift and severe response if Iran were to move forward with the transfer of ballistic missiles,” he added.

Swift and severe, you say? We’re waiting. In 2022 Iran began providing Russia with Shahed drones, artillery shells and ammunition. In 2023 Iran began building a drone factory in Russia. Yet that fall the Biden Administration allowed United Nations restrictions on Iran’s missile program to lapse.

Ukraine relies on U.S. Patriot defense batteries to counter ballistic missiles. Iran’s shipment to Russia will further strain its scarce air defenses as Russia continues to attack civilians and energy infrastructure.

Meanwhile, Tehran is learning from Moscow’s military experience, and its complex April 13 drone and missile attack against Israel was “remarkably similar to Russian-perpetrated attacks on Ukraine,” Dana Stroul of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy told U.S. lawmakers this year.

In exchange for ballistic missiles, Russia “agreed to supply Iran with its advanced Su-35 fighter jets, attack helicopters, and training aircraft,” Gen. Erik Kurilla of U.S. Central Command said in March.

The strategic perversity here is that the Biden Administration’s refusal to enforce sanctions on Iranian oil sales has enriched the regime so it can afford to build more missiles. It then supplies those missiles to Russia, which uses them to bombard Ukraine, which the U.S. is supplying with defenses against those missiles. Wouldn’t it make sense to stop enriching Iran in the first place?