The fate of Russian oilman Mikhail Khodorkovsky has been written about before in this space and he has not been forgotten, especially in the heat of recent reports of Russia’s attack on Georgia.Indeed, we have long sensed that his treatment at the hands of the regime of then-President Vladimir Putin, now Russia’s prime minister, was a bad sign for the oil and gas industry—whether Russian or international.Events have borne out our foreboding: Khodorkovsky’s arrest, trial, and incarceration in a Siberian prison represented some of the earliest indications of how the Kremlin viewed, and would mistreat, others in the oil and gas industry.Look how things have fared: China and...