What if the government America just installed in Iraq decides to pay $100 billion to the regime in Iran? That’s the scenario America is facing, thanks to our own reluctance to take on the mullahs in Tehran. The BBC late last week quoted the man who is now president of the American-appointed Iraqi governing council, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, as saying in London that Iran deserves reparations from Iraq for the Iran-Iraq war during the 1980s.

“According to the U.N., Iran deserves reparations. She must be satisfied,” the Iraqi leader said, according to the BBC. Iran claims it is owed $100 billion. Mr. Hakim also serves as the head of the Iranian-backed Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

Surely, there must be some Iraqis who recognize that the minute the first Iraqi dollar starts flowing to the current government of Iran, American congressional support for funding the rebuilding of Iraq will diminish. As our Eli Lake reported in Fri day’s New York Sun, President Clinton’s FBI director, Louis Freeh, testified in federal court under oath that the head of the Iranian intelligence service was involved in planning the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing that killed 19 American servicemen in Dharan, Saudi Arabia. Iranian support for terrorism continues to this day in the form of funding and guidance for Hamas and Hezbollah and shelter for Al Qaeda.

There will be those who blame Iraq’s leadership for trying to cozy up to the Iranians and there is a shared responsibility. But the Iraqis are only echoing the policy set by the State Department, which, in congressional testimony by the deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage, characterized America’s goal as being not to change the regime in Tehran. If America isn’t going to help get rid of that Iranian regime — and if that Iranian regime, as it appears, is going to have a nuclear bomb in the next two years — it’s understandable that Iraqis would want to treat their powerful neighbor very gingerly.