Danielle Pletka, vice  president for foreign  and defense policy  studies

As the United Nations General Assembly swings into its 62nd session, the U.S. is pressing for a third Security Council resolution tightening sanctions on Iran. While some Council members are eager to hold Iran to account (France and Britain), others (Russia and China) have dug in their heels. The administration will nevertheless use its still-considerable clout to ratchet up international pressure.

All well and good--but in the meantime, Washington has been doing an unaccountably poor job implementing the first two resolutions it expended so much effort to get passed.

U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1737 (December 2006) and 1747 (March 2007) each contain measures to limit Iran's progress on its illegal nuclear weapons program, and to tighten the screws on people intimately involved with it. Both highlight particular individuals and entities, requiring member states to, among other things, freeze assets "owned or controlled" by those on the list and "persons or entities acting on their behalf or at their direction." In all, 50 individuals and entities are cited.

Oddly, however, the U.S. has thus far frozen the accounts or travel of only 17 (14 entities and three individuals) of the 50 listed in the resolutions. Among those who escape U.S. censure are Seyed Jaber Safdari, the manager of the Natanz Enrichment Facilities and a lengthy assortment of senior Revolutionary Guard officials.

This failure to act is even odder in light of the process that generated the lists. A wide net was cast, all parties suspecting correctly that Iran would bob and weave around any sanctions put in place. Slowly, however, the roster of miscreants was pared down as Security Council members and others pushed back on less-certain cases. Finally, the list was refined to individuals and companies for which the U.S. and its allies had clear information--publicly available or through intelligence--of a link to WMD programs.

A news story about the U.S. failure to implement the sanctions recently appeared in the New York Times. U.S. officials blamed the Europeans, suggesting that the necessary details to implement them were not forthcoming. The implication--either that the Europeans had suggested all the names (not true), or that somehow it is Europe's job to dig up personal data (just plain silly)--defies belief.

The truth does not reflect well on either the Europeans or the Americans.

In April, after significant American grumbling about delays, the European Union barred entry to the listed individuals (more than the U.N. resolutions require), froze their accounts and even added more names for good measure. EU member states, trumpeting their own observation of the letter of the law, make clear that they do not require account numbers, passport numbers and dates of birth in order to impose sanctions. They add that where they have such information, all of which the U.S. requires to freeze accounts and ban travel, they have given it to the U.S.

This is all admirable, but begs the question of how the EU implemented the sanctions without account and passport numbers, etc. The disconcerting answer, European officials confess, is that they are not aware of any actual person denied travel or any accounts actually frozen.

American officials argue that implementing sanctions without sufficient information to ensure they actually bite is meaningless. True. Also true is that not all 27 EU nations are equally enthused about implementing sanctions. Germany, which continues to do billions in brisk business with Iran, has reportedly been reticent about sharing information about the 50. And Russia and China are blatantly ignoring the sanctions.

But the Bush administration has some explaining to do about the 33 on the list whose accounts or travel have not been frozen. How can it be that U.S. intelligence is certain about the names and nefarious dealings of these individuals and entities--but knows nothing about the banks where these individuals or companies do business or hold accounts? Adding up all the pieces, it is hard to escape the impression of American fecklessness.

The U.S. is second to none in the breadth of its sanctions against Iran. Many of those sanctions sounded an alarm early on, and likely prevented more rapid progress on the Iranian nuclear weapons program. All the more reason why ignoring American fumbles will be so harmful to our goal--achieving a policy that ends the Iranian nuclear weapons program.

Last week, French President Nicolas Sarkozy gave voice to the obvious: "Between surrender and war, there is a range of solutions that exist like the reinforcement of sanctions which will eventually have an effect." If sanctions keep us from war, it will be because they are wide-ranging and effective. If there is war, it will be fought by Americans.

Recalling that fact, perhaps the time has come for us to be a little bit more careful in practicing what we preach.