ISIS on the offensive in Iraq

[Pannonian]

Did we now?

I'll say the Cuban missile crisis showed very clearly that we had absolutely no clue of what they were up to, and neither did they.

And you keep missing my point. Whether we knew what they were up to, and they us, we both were in agreement on how we talked with each other. We maintained diplomatic relations with each other at all times, and there was no fear that our diplomats would end up dead just because they were our people. That's the bare minimum of understanding the other side. If you have that, there is scope for expanding from there. If you don't have that, nothing at all is possible. We don't have that with the middle eastern loons.