Masoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq, visited Washington, DC, earlier this month to meet with President Barack Obama. Barzani came knowing his chance of success–he wanted direct provision of weaponry–was poor. Kurds could read it in the tea leaves: When Barzani feels he’s going to get what he wants, he brings only his sons and a few hangers-on from his political party, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) over which he presides with an iron first. That way, he can claim all the credit for himself, his family, and the party. When he knows his trip isn’t going to be successful, however, he includes in his entourage token members of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan or the Goran Movement, the region’s other major parties, so that he doesn’t need to shoulder blame himself.

Before he came to Washington, Barzani’s office told Kurds back in Iraqi Kurdistan that he would push Obama for independence. He actually didn’t talk about independence at the White House—he never does—but speaking later to a hand-picked audience at the Atlantic Council, where the daughter of his chief-of-staff works, he reiterated that he would steer Kurds to realize their dreams of independence.

The Kurds deserve independence, but Barzani will never deliver it. He has always used independence as a rhetorical tool around which to rally Kurds and increasingly he uses the lack of independence as an excuse against reform (he is currently serving the tenth year of his eight year presidency).

While it is the policy of the United States to oppose Iraq’s division (just like President George H.W. Bush once opposed the Soviet Union’s division), should the Kurds declare their independence in Iraqi Kurdistan, both the United States and Turkey would likely support them. For Obama, red lines are rhetorical only. There never will be a green light, but Barzani could run the yellow if he so chose.

But even if Barzani was willing to forgo the billions of dollars he receives from the Kurdish share of southern Iraq’s oil revenue, he knows deep down that he cannot declare independence. The problem is not Washington, but rather Tehran. When the Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) seized Mosul, the Kurds unilaterally took control of Kirkuk and many other disputed territories. In short, by fait accompli, they possessed most of over what they once had negotiated. It was Iran that threw cold water on to the optimism Kurds felt.

On July 6, 2014, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian declared:

“This talk about breaking apart Iraq is a Zionist plot… We should not forget that in recent days, the only place that joyfully supported the independence of Iraqi Kurdistan and urged the region to secede was Netanyahu. We will never allow the dreams of Netanyahu in Iraq and our region for the breaking apart of the critical region of West Asia to come true.”

Amir-Abdollahian’s comments, like so much that drives Iranian foreign policy, may be conspiratorial nonsense, but Barzani knows that the Qods Force, the elite unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps charged with export of revolution and which has free reign over Iraqi Kurdistan, would sooner kill Barzani than allow any referendum to move forward let alone independence. The problem isn’t division of Iraq so much as the precedent for Iran. Just in the last week, mass protests have erupted in Iranian Kurdistan after an Iranian intelligence ministry employee attempted to rape a Kurdish maid in a Mahabad hotel. Iranian Kurds have a history of separatism, as do Iranian Azerbaijanis, Baluchis, and Arabs. That doesn’t mean the majority of Azeris, Baluchis, and Arabs want to split from Iran—the sense of Iranian nationhood predates the ethno-nationalism around which so many countries organized themselves in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Iran has, however, been traumatized by separatist movements which today make it half the size many Iranians believe Iran should be if it were not for past ‘historical injustice.’

In short, Barzani can talk about independence all he wants when he’s in Washington, Hungary, or the Czech Republic. The true test of Barzani’s seriousness, however, will be when he talks about independence while in Iran. They are the real obstacles to Iraqi Kurdish independence, and no one else.