It always surprises me that those intelligence agencies obviously think this is worth it, considering they certainly must be aware of all the potential drawbacks that occur when you fuel war and instability like that.

They must operate with totally different views of what constitute "good" and "bad" outcomes of the whole conflict. I guess you can justify all of that by just being cynical enough, but I'd like it if the military (at least in democratic countries) had to make their rationale for heating up conflicts transparent to the civilian world.