Pakistan, April 22 -- Power rarely announces itself in moments of clarity. It reveals itself in what the world chooses to ignore, and in what it suddenly decides it can no longer afford to ignore.

For weeks, the war between the United States, Iran, and Israel unfolded in a familiar register: strikes, reprisals, escalation. In one report, a school in Iran collapsed into dust. In another, children were pulled from rubble in Gaza. Names were briefly counted, then replaced by numbers. The images appeared on screens for a moment, dust, sirens, broken walls, and then disappeared into the cycle of updates. Life ended in fragments of attention.

Then the oil moved. A tanker slowed in the Strait of Hormuz. Insurance costs surged overnight. Market...