America’s war on terror now risks becoming a permanent war against an expanding list of enemies – often inadvertently created by its own policies. Just as covert aid to Afghanistan’s anti-Soviet rebels in the 1980s contributed to Al Qaeda’s emergence – something that Hillary Clinton acknowledged when she was Obama’s secretary of state – the help that the US and its allies provided to Syrian insurgents after they emerged in 2011 contributed to the rise of the Islamic State.
如今，美国的反恐战争有可能演变为一场持久战争，对手的名单越来越长——并且往往来自其自身政策的副作用。正如20世纪80年代对阿富汗的反苏叛军的秘密援助导致了基地组织的崛起——希拉里·克林顿在担任奥巴马的国务卿期间也承认了这一点——2011年叙利亚叛军出现后美国及其盟友对他们援助也导致了伊斯兰国的崛起。