During the Kurdish civil war (PUK versus KDP) the PUK was supported by Iran, and the KDP cut deals with Saddam making it sort of a proxy war. The point is that some Kurdish elements have ties with Iran. Of course there is a large Kurdish population in Iran also. I'm sure Jedburgh can enlighten us more on this.

Going back to the Iranian Consulate in Irbil, I found out recently that Irbil has its own functioning international airport (I wonder if they go through Iraqi or Kurdish Immigration and Customs?) Kurdistan also cut oil deals with other nations, so it appears that in many ways they are plowing ahead with their dream of becoming an independent nation, so it doesn't surprise me that there are consulates in Irbil. Additionally, Irbil is one of the safest cities in Iraq. Anyway, interesting story on the raid, I hope to see the Paul Harvey rest of the story version soon.