After Iraq’s Kurdish independence referendum, its neighbors have taken strong and immediate action. Baghdad declared the vote invalid. Tehran banned flights to and from the region, and Turkey threatened to cut a Kurdish artery – its oil pipeline.

With close ties to the Iranian government, Hezbollah has accused Iraqi Kurds of creating new divisions in the Middle East and creating further instability in the fight against ISIL.

“After the failure of the Daesh scheme which was entirely a scheme that served the US and Israel and aimed to deliver the entire region to the US and Israel, now they are implementing a new scheme, one that has been in the works for some time,” said Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrullah. “But now is the time for action which is the plan to partition the region once again and the starting point is Iraqi Kurdistan.”

Similar sentiments were made by Turkey’s president. He has threatened to shut down the vital oil pipeline that carries oil from Kurdistan to the Mediterranean.

“They are not forming an independent state in northern Iraq, on the contrary they are opening a wound in the region to twist the knife in,” Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said.

“Ignoring this fact will not do good neither to us nor to our Kurdish brothers in Iraq or others parties.”

Nonetheless, the Kurds say these comments are due to his own presidential re-election campaign in 2019.

The leading political party in Kurdistan said it is not concerned. They said they expect their neighbors will soon calm down, when they realize an independent Kurdistan will be a pacifying presence in the region.

“We don’t have any concerns regarding what our neighbors are saying,” Janghis Awakalay, an officer from Kurdistan Democratic Party says. “We will assure our neighbors that Kurdistan will be a factor of stability in the region.”

But if the Kurds were expecting support from their traditional allies, the United States, they may have to think again.

While the US is unlikely to support any military action against the Kurds, it's unlikely to end their isolation either. US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson released a statement saying the referendum was illegitimate.