Determined bureaucracies a challenge to the policy process

While at a book review at the American Enterprise Institute, John Bolton spoke with his fellow panelists about the role the Bureaucracy plays in shaping policy. The forum addressed the late Peter W. Rodman’s book Presidential Command: Power, Leadership, and the Making of Foreign Policy from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush. The author and the panelists found that some of the bureaucratic practices often limited the number of options presented to those higher up, by deriving consensus and stifling dissent. Bolton said, “Secretaries of State and Presidents ought to welcome competing views, and then the higher level policy maker makes the decision.” Lack of accountability was also of concern to both author Rodman and the panel, who stressed that the the president and other elected officials are the ones who have legitimacy derived from the constitution and the democratic process. The panel met for approximately an hour and a half.

By Michael Ruhl, University of New Mexico - Talk Radio News Service

All things local, foreclosure crisis up close

By watching the news most Americans believe that there is a real crisis in the foreclosure market. This is not the held belief though of Charles Calomiris who is currently serving as a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

Discussing whether the effect of foreclosures on housing prices has been overstated, Calomiris railed against foreclosures to start. “Foreclosures also waste resources because the vacant homes deteriorate or are vandalized. These are also problems for the lender, which is frequently holding the title to the home until it could be sold.”

Calomiris was joined by others from AEI who joined with him in their assertion that the foreclosure crisis is not as serious as some critics have stated. One voice that strayed from the pact was that of Mark Zandi who believes that foreclosures on homes should be attributed to the impact on home prices. “There is a correlation said Zandi.”

Calomiris, who is known as a professor of Financial Institutions at Columbia Business School, posed the question: “foreclosures really have small efforts on prices, they make prices go down but what is the big effect?”

If anything that was agreed upon it was that there is currently no national system to gauge the foreclosures market. Calomiris summed it up when concluding the discussion by stating “housing is a local market.”

AEI discussion Iranian influence in the Middle East

At the The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) discussion on "Iranian Influence in the Middle East and Beyond," Danielle Pletka of AEI said looking at the Iranian "reach" from the past helps us gets some insight into the regime’s intent in Iraq. There are a lot of telling signs of change, she said, using as an example the economy in Syria, and how Iran is becoming a dominant role there. Iran imports weapons from Russia, and then provides them to Syria, she said. In regards to Iran’s relationship with Hezbollah, they provide diplomatic, military, and economic support. They have taken a ‘very prominent role’ in the re-armament of the Lebanese.

Kimberly Kagan, President of the Institute for the Study of War, said Iran has been a force of instability in Iraq since 2003. Beyond discussion of weapons, she said, there are a lot of other influences, and that the provision of weapons is just one leg of the story. What is surprising in Iranian policy, she said, is the creation of the secret cells which have become an independent entity. The Iranian and Hezbollah Connection to special Groups in Iraq have been reorganized, Kagan said. She said they have been watching more advisers operating across Iraq to keep the militia running.

Frederick Kagan of AEI said one of the things that is an issue is Iranian weapons supplied to Afghanistan. Too often in a discussion, he said, people tend to look at the regime of Iran from their own point of view. A very important issue, he said, is the Afghanistan refugees in Iran. On the one hand, he said, they have let the Afghans move pretty freely and in general terms have treated them very well, but recently have decided that "enough is enough." In April 2007, Iran began a process of rounding up refugees and migrant workers and "dumping them" in Afghanistan without notifying the Afghan government.