The Symptom and the Disease: Cholera and State Collapse in Syria and Lebanon

The breakdown of governance in Syria and Lebanon has given rise to the largest outbreak of cholera in the Middle East in decades and is impeding efforts to combat this often deadly disease.
In this video, Institute senior fellows Hanin Ghaddar and Andrew J. Tabler analyze the causes of the cholera epidemic and the many factors that prevent its eradication.
“The goal of the international health and medical organizations is to stop the spread and contain the disease but the problem is not medical,” Ghaddar explains. “This is happening because of the collapse of state institutions.”

Washington and its allies now must thread the needle on addressing the problems resulting from state breakdown in Syria and Lebanon all the while maintaining measures designed to address Assad and Hezbollah’s destabilizing behavior.
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Hanin Ghaddar is the Friedmann Fellow in The Washington Institute’s Geduld Program on Arab Politics and a former journalist in Lebanon.
Andrew J. Tabler is the Martin J. Gross Senior Fellow in The Washington Institute’s Geduld Program on Arab Politics, and a former Senior Advisor at the U.S. Department of State and the National Security Council’s Director for Syria.

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