Denial dogged my travels around the world these past weeks. At a World Economic Forum gathering in Dubai just before Dubai World’s debt problems made headlines, the head Sheikh touted Dubai’s superiority over the West for problems that Dubai had seemingly avoided. But the idle cranes and empty buildings I saw were monuments to denial that global economic interdependence would pose a limit to Dubai’s risky post-crisis speculation. Rather than change strategy, Dubai Inc. continued business as usual — and failed. The Sheikh denied the failure, telling the press that the world just doesn’t understand.