At a discussion in New York City in the late spring of 1989, the oil minister from one of the major exporting countries, a man who had been at the center of all the battles of the 1970s and 1980s, spoke at length about the new realism of producers and consumers and the lessons learned by both. Afterwards, he was asked how long such lessons would be remembered. The question took him a bit by surprise, and he thought for a moment. “About three years, without reminding,” he said. Within a year of that exchange, he himself was no longer minister. And a month later, his country was invaded.
