The key choice for the Iraqi Kurds is this: if they are smart enough to take the bird in the hand and essentially disavow the three in the bush (Kurds in Turkey, Syria, Iran), they have a real chance at real independence.
This is the tough choice Kemal Attaturk made in Turkey after WWI (forgetting the rest of the Ottoman Empire) and which David Ben-Gurion made with Israel after WWII (settling for half of what Zionists wanted territorially), and it made their states happen.
Barzani and Co. make this smart but tough call now, and they have a chance. Equivocate or get too cute, and it may all come crashing down. That's why the Iraqi Kurds must give up the PKK inside their territory.
You want a state of your own, you make the tough calls--even if all they do is put off inevitable clashes (remember slavery in the U.S.).