Now that Syria has been seduced into participating in the Middle East powwow in Annapolis, Md., it is time to ask: Are we barking up the wrong tree? All Arab-Israeli issues are up for examination today, including the Golan Heights, but shouldn’t the focus instead be on Lebanon? The real question is: Where is the crisis? No major war is going on between Israeli and Arab armies.

In addition, the Israeli-Palestinian Arab dispute has hit a snag, as Israel’s demand to be recognized as a Jewish state is roundly refused. The Golan Heights has been quiet since the war of 1973, and all negotiations over the region since then have reached the same dead end. And the Saudis and other Arab representatives will not shake hands with their Israeli counterparts even at the Annapolis conference, the mother of all photo opportunities.

At the same time, the vastly under-covered drama in Lebanon is nearing a boiling point.

After preventing the Parliament from electing a new president — thus creating a constitutional crisis — Hezbollah then announced that the country was in a constitutional crisis. The president, as an official head of state, is supposed to be charged with selecting a new prime minister. But as no president was elected, the existing government of Prime Minister Siniora — who has the West’s backing — “is illegitimate and unconstitutional.”

“It doesn’t exist, so it can’t rule, and it can’t exercise the role of the presidency,” Hezbollah’s second in command, Naim Qassem, said yesterday. The constitution does allot powers to the government when no president is in office, but the aim of the Iranian-controlled Hezbollah and its pro-Syrian allies — including other Shiite parties and some in the Christian community — has for months now been to create a big enough constitutional question mark to allow splitting the country in two.

This strategy began to bear fruit at midnight Friday, when President Lahoud’s term in office (which two years ago was extended beyond its constitutional term limits) officially ended — with a bang. The pro-Syrian Mr. Lahoud handed control of the country to the army, declaring that the situation “could lead to a state of emergency.” Mr. Siniora calmly countered, “There is no need for a state of emergency,” adding that “the army is carrying out its duties.”

The army is the one Lebanese institution that under the sure-handed command of General Michel Suleiman has been able to remain above the rancorous political maelstrom that seems to be steering the country toward a split between pro-Westerners and a pro-Iranians. According to yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph, however, Hezbollah has reached beyond the Shiite sectarian divide, appealing to thousands of Druze and Christian as new recruits to its own army. This is the same army that was created by Tehran’s Revolutionary Guards as a military counterbalance to Lebanon’s southern neighbor, Israel.

This brings us back to Annapolis. If the Bush administration’s goal is to wring out new Israeli concessions for an elusive peace, potentially destabilizing the one stable democracy in the Middle East, Annapolis will lead nowhere, or at least nowhere worth leading to. On the other hand, supporting democratically oriented forces in Lebanon, as well as the rest of the Arab and Muslim world, is a worthy cause.

Let’s hope, however, that the Bush administration’s goal is less idealistic than either of the above, and is aimed at addressing a much more urgent cause. All you need to know to recognize this cause is who is against it. The loudest opposition is from Tehran and its allies in the Middle East, including Hamas and Hezbollah. The Annapolis gathering is “of no benefit to the Palestinian people and has the aim of supporting the occupying Zionists,” President Ahmadinejad of Iran said yesterday. And yet far-flung Arab and Islamic countries are there. At the last possible minute, Syria’s deputy foreign minister, Faysal Mekdad, announced yesterday that even he is flying to Annapolis (although Syria’s choice to remain in solidarity with the Arab League will not tear it away from Iran, its natural ally and main benefactor, as some in the West hope).

But note this: Even before Mr. Mekdad made his headline-grabbing announcement yesterday — immediately leading everyone to the old Golan maps — Lebanon’s acting foreign minister, Tarek Mitri, announced that he would participate. If the goal at Annapolis is to halt the victorious march of Iran and its allies, it is best to do so not by ganging up on Israel, but by turning this crowded event into a solidarity display with Lebanon’s government.

bavni@nysun.com