Proxy wars carry risks, and even those of us who are sympathetic to the rebel cause must recognise this. The shadow of Afghanistan, another country where Saudi Arabia and the United States cooperated to aid fragmented rebel forces, hangs over present-day Syria. Those efforts, labelled "ghost wars" by the journalist Steve Coll, succeeded in toppling a government, but also contributed to decades of instability, emboldened radical Islamist groups, and had consequences far beyond Afghanistan's borders.
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