Just how effective have Western sanctions been against Iran — and for that matter, Russia? The US has spearheaded efforts to deny both countries access to Western technology, especially that with dual-use capabilities for military purposes. In the case of Iran, those sanctions and trade restrictions go back decades.

And according to an exclusive from the Wall Street Journal today, they appear significantly ineffective. Ukrainian and Western experts have begun looking at the remains of Iranian drones that targeted infrastructure in the Russian invasion, and a lot of the parts come from Western supply chains:

New intelligence collected from downed Iranian drones in Ukraine shows that a majority of the aircrafts’ parts are manufactured by companies in the U.S., Europe and other allied nations, stoking concern among Western officials and analysts and prompting a U.S. government investigation, according to people familiar with the matter and documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The documentation of Western parts shows how Tehran has been arming itself and its allies with powerful new weaponry despite being the target of one of the most comprehensive sanction regimes in modern history.

Ukrainian intelligence estimates that three-quarters of the components of the Iranian drones downed in Ukraine are American-made, according to documents reviewed by the Journal. The findings were made after the Ukrainian military downed several drones, including an Iranian Mohajer-6 drone that agents hacked midflight and landed intact, according to Ukrainian investigators.

The components, identified by Ukrainian military intelligence, were verified by the Independent Anti-Corruption Commission, or NAKO, a Kyiv-based nonprofit that inspected the drone. NAKO, whose expertise includes assessing military contracts and arms, showed its report to The Wall Street Journal.

If true, that’s pretty disappointing, to put it mildly. We already knew that the Iranians had built drones based on American technology after they captured one intact several years ago and reverse-engineered it. There’s not much one could do about that risk, which is part of the risks of any conflict. (For instance, we’re learning a lot about Russian defense technology in this war, especially on how poorly it performs.)

Reverse engineering and manufacturing copies of our technology would be bad enough. Using actual American-produced technology in military materiel is much worse. First, the Iranians have plenty more opportunities for reverse engineering it, but it also means that they can use the more reliably produced components for their offensive weapons. Right now, those are targeting Ukrainians as Russia buys them from Iran’s mullahs, but the obvious consequence from this is that Iranians can kill American soldiers using America’s own technology.

This raises more questions, too. How much more of American production ends up in the hands of Iran? And how much of it is going to North Korea, or for that matter, directly into Russia?

Not to mention, who is selling this technology to America’s enemies?

There may be another question, however. Has the US defined these components as dual use and restricted their sale? Israel’s defense ministry, which has seen the same intel, at least suggested that some of this technology may not have been restricted:

The high-resolution telescopic infrared lens used in the Mohajer-6 appears identical to a model made by the Israeli firm Ophir Optronics Solutions Ltd., according to photos of the device examined by WSJ. MKS Instruments Inc., Ophir’s parent company, told the newspaper that it does not sell parts to Iran and abides by sanctions.

The report stressed that many of the parts found in the drones are not under export controls and can be easily bought online and shipped through other countries to Iran. …

The Israeli Defense Ministry responded to the report on Wednesday evening, stating that Israel is reviewing the findings and that a preliminary review had found that the lens in question is not a controlled defense item nor a dual-use item.

The Jerusalem Post also offered a likely scenario as to how Iran procures technology, forbidden or not:

Earlier this month, Schemes, the investigative unit of RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, found components on a Mohajer-6 drone originating from at least 15 different technology companies from North America, the EU, Japan and Taiwan, including parts from the US-based Texas Instruments firm. Texas Instruments replied that it does not sell parts to Russia, Belarus, or Iran.

Schemes report pointed out that Iran has a global procurement network built out of front companies and other proxies in third countries. “Exporters will look at the request coming from the [United Arab Emirates] or another third country, and they’ll think that they’re selling to an end user based there, when really the end user is in Iran,” Daniel Salisbury, a senior research fellow with the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, told RFE/RL.

Typically, regimes get around sanctions through this very method. It’s how the US catches arms traffickers, too — by setting up fake fronts and tracking illegal arms shipments. We caught Viktor Bout in just such an operation several years ago, but while Bout was the biggest fish, plenty of other arms and tech traffickers still operate. Clearly, they also operate effectively.

So what do we do about this? First off, we need to better identify dual-use technologies and track their sales. Second, we need to tighten sanctions and restrict revenue to suppress the ability of hostile regimes to buy it. That would involve a strategic use of America’s ability to produce oil and natural gas and use organic market forces to lower the prices of both, robbing Iran and Russia of income for these nefarious purposes. Too bad we’re stuck with an administration that couldn’t recognize strategic opportunities the past two years and still remain blind to them to this day — and still want to cut a deal with Tehran that would allow them much more access to income and American technology.