With the threat of a veto hanging over its head, the National Defense Authorization bill heads to the House floor today for debate. Among the provisions are several dealing with the question of a nuclear weapons armed Iran, and what the United States should do to avert a crisis, prepare to handle the threat, or eliminate the threat altogether. Rep. Conaway has included several provisions of his Credible Military Option to Iran Act (HR 4485) bill, introduced a few weeks ago. Designed to enhance both U.S. and Israeli military capacity to face Iran and make more credible a military option (it’s on the table, people, on it!), the extensive bill has support from HASC Chairman McKeon and others.

Over on the Senate side, there are a few more bills targeting the Islamic Republic and angling to pressure the White House to do more to squeeze Iran. HR 1905, the Iran Threat Reduction Act, has passed the House and is languishing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Majority Leader Harry Reid has a vice-like grip on the S. 2101 Johnson-Shelby Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Human Rights Act of 2012, on which Senate GOP Leader McConnell wishes a recorded vote, which Senator Mark Kirk wishes to strengthen, Senator Lieberman wishes to amend, and Senator Rand Paul wishes to kill.

Having a hard time keeping things straight? It’s not that members are pandering to the pro-Israel lobby (AIPAC doesn’t actively support all these bills), nor that they can’t get their, er, Acts together. Rather, they recognize that there’s so much more the administration can do, from more extensive Central Bank sanctions, to sanctioning the remaining Iranian banks, to leaning harder on others doing oil and non-oil business in Iran. But what members of Congress aren’t doing is using the considerable non-legislative leverage they already have to enforce the many Iran non-proliferation and sanctions provisions already in law.

The reality is that Barack Obama and every president before him all the way back to George H.W. Bush had all the authority they needed to nail Iran’s friends, suppliers, business partners, etc. They simply didn’t choose to. But Congress has the power through hearings, briefings, and more seriously through holding aid programs, ambassadors (in the Senate), arms sales, and so much more to get the White House’s attention. Those tools are reviled by many as too draconian, abusive of Congress’s power, etc. My response to that: Not complying with the letter of the law is the far worse transgression; yet from sanctions on companies that do business with Iran to isolating Iran’s banks to sanctioning Iran’s weapons suppliers, the Obama administration and many before it have simply ignored the law of the land. It’s time to make them comply, not to introduce more laws to ignore.

Danielle Pletka is the Vice President of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.