Amidst much hope and celebration, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq called a referendum for September 25, 2017 on whether or not its government should open negotiations with the Iraqi Government in Baghdad over eventual KRG independence. This move had long been broached; indeed, two unofficial referenda held in 2004 and again in 2005 almost unanimously called for independence despite the opposition of the main Kurdish leaders who had argued then that independence would not be practical given strong regional opposition. However, this time Massoud Barzani, the president of the KRG, called for an official referendum, and despite unexpectedly strong opposition from the United States, Baghdad, and other regional governments, persisted, but with disastrous results. Thus, as a fallout from the KRG referendum, Iraqi forces with strong Iranian support and Turkish and U.S. compliance, quickly occupied Kirkuk and other disputed territories, closed the KRG's two international airports in Irbil and Sulaymaniya, and took over the KRG's border crossings, among others. Massoud Barzani resigned as KRG president, and the Kurdish region was thrown from the heights of ambition to the depths of failure. Clearly, the KRG had overreached and badly miscalculated in including Kirkuk and other disputed territories in the referendum in an overly ambitious attempt to unilaterally implement Iraqi Constitution Article 140 on the future of the disputed city and territories. The failure to put up even a fight for Kirkuk, also illustrated continuing Kurdish disunity despite the KRG's existence since 1992 and further that the Kurds had grossly exaggerated their military power. The purpose of this panel is to analyze how this Kurdish disaster occurred, and what the future holds. Is this a return to the earlier total defeat of 1975 or a lesser setback? What new KRG strategies are possible in the post-referendum era? The papers for this panel will be based on primary sources gathered through field work in Iraqi Kurdistan, interviews with important actors including the KRG leaders, and a close culling of the Kurdish, regional, and international press as well as secondary works. At this time, the tentative conclusion is that the current de-facto, anti-KRG alliance between Iran, Turkey, Iraq, and the United States, makes for strange bedfellows and is not likely to last because of their inherent differences.