In a Jordanian hotel, Syria and Israel sat across from one another for the first time in years, brought together by American mediation in the shadow of fresh airstrikes and a half-century-old ceasefire now in question. The collapse of Assad's government last December cracked open a regional order that had long kept these tensions frozen, and what has poured through since is a contest over who gets to shape Syria's future. Both sides arrived with grievances and conditions, and the distance between them measures not just disputed territory but the deeper question of whether a fragile new Syrian