When you jump like this on the global scene, you have to have your internal front secure. You’ve got to give the world a chance to digest Dubai. You can only push so fast.

They’re learning they have many enemies over there.

Insurgents of all kinds are attacking the oil industry as a way of fighting the governments in charge. It’s contributing to a lot of anxiety about the safety of supply.

In Iraq they zeroed in on oil, and this appears to be a creeping process, since it is happening in Saudi Arabia.

Of course it’s an enormous success story. But is it time to pause and reorganize the home front? I think so.

This can only make the already-damaged image worse. The problem is, for four or five years, we haven’t found a way to repair that damaged image.