The deadline is today. On Tuesday, Lebanese Foreign Minister Youssef Rajji declared Iran's ambassador-designate Mohammad Reza Sheibani persona non grata and ordered him to leave the country by Sunday, March 29. The expulsion was the sharpest diplomatic break between Beirut and Tehran in decades, a public assertion that Lebanon would no longer tolerate a foreign power's proxy infrastructure operating on its soil. [1] [2]

Hezbollah's response was immediate and unambiguous. A party statement condemned the expulsion as "a reckless and reprehensible step that serves neither Lebanon's national interests nor its sovereignty." A Hezbollah member of parliament went further in an Al-Akhbar interview: "March 29 does not exist." The statement was not metaphorical. It was a declaration that Hezbollah does not recognize the Lebanese government's authority to expel an ambassador whose patron finances, arms, and directs the party. [3]

Then Iran underlined the point with ordnance. Hours after the expulsion announcement, a missile fired from Iranian territory struck Lebanon's coast, according to Iran International. No casualties were reported. The Lebanese Army confirmed the impact. The message was legible without translation: Lebanon's government may issue diplomatic orders, but the country's airspace belongs to whoever can put a warhead through it. [4]

The question today is enforcement. If Sheibani boards a flight to Tehran, the Lebanese government will have demonstrated that sovereignty is more than a constitutional claim. If he remains -- protected by Hezbollah's political infrastructure, his diplomatic residence untouched by the Lebanese security services -- then the expulsion order becomes what Hezbollah said it was: a gesture that the calendar does not recognize.

The precedent matters beyond Lebanon. Iran maintains ambassador-level relationships across the region that double as command channels for its proxy network. If a small country in wartime can expel an Iranian envoy and make it stick, other capitals may follow. If it cannot, the war will have confirmed what analysts have long suspected: that Iranian influence in Lebanon operates on a plane above state sovereignty, and that Lebanese institutions function only where Hezbollah permits them to.

The AP, the New York Times, and the Jerusalem Post all covered the expulsion order when it was issued on Tuesday. Coverage on the enforcement day has been sparse. The test is not whether Lebanon's foreign ministry can draft a declaration. The test is whether the declaration changes anything in Beirut by Monday morning.

Al-Hurra reported Saturday that Sheibani has not been seen departing his residence. Hezbollah's Al-Manar television did not cover the deadline at all, which is itself an editorial position: the deadline is not news because the deadline is not real.

-- CHARLES ASHFORD, London