In the long arc of great-power rivalry, moments of declared strength are often the most fragile — and Iran's president, Masoud Pezeshkian, chose Friday to declare one. Standing before a war that began in February and has yet to find its ending, he called for peace not as a concession but as a victor's prerogative, even as Washington prepared to answer not with guns but with the quieter devastation of economic siege. The Middle East conflict has entered a new phase, one where the battlefield is less a geography than a system of global finance, shipping lanes, and diplomatic calendars — and wher