THE ARAB WORLD is going to revolt in the coming weeks, Austin Bay writes. But rest easy, it's not that "eruption of the Arab street" predicted so many times by modern-day Cassandras trying to warn against any initiative. It's something much more benign (via Glenn Reynolds):

Mark it on your calendar: Next month, the Arab Middle East will revolt.

However, generals with tanks and terrorists with fatwas won't be leading the revolution. This time, Arab moderates and liberal reformers -- the Middle East's genuine rebels -- are the insurgent vanguard.

Put a circle around Jan. 9. That's the day Palestinians go to the polls to elect a president. In the desperate, divided and terrorized Palestinian statelet, electoral politics (ballots) are replacing pistol politics (bullets). That is a revolution -- a worldview-shattering, history-creating revolution.

Draw another circle around Jan. 30. That's Iraq's first election day. Underline the two weeks prior to Jan. 30. That will be a savage fortnight in which terror campaigns and political campaigns collide. Democratic candidates will be assassinated and polling stations will be blown to bits, as Saddamite and Al Qaeda reactionaries -- the Middle East's ancien regime of tyrant and terrorist -- attempt to force an oppressed people to submit one more time to the yoke of fear.

But they are going to fail.

And he explains why.

But, alas, personally I was bit depressed by the last paragraph:

A successful Iraqi election following the Palestinian vote would make it a six-pack of electoral defeats for the twin evils of tyrant and terrorist. The other four? Australia returned pro-war-on-terror Prime Minister John Howard to power. In Afghanistan, voters braved Taliban terror to elect a president. In the United States, Bush won on the family value of protecting and projecting liberty. And people power thwarted thug attempts to steal Ukraine's presidential election, with a new vote set for Dec. 26.

The reason? Think which country couldn't be included in this list of good signs.

Mine.

UPDATE. A related editorial from the Washington Post.