The Iranian government hand counted tens of millions of presidential election ballots in a couple of hours; less time than we count ours by computer -- an Ayatollahs' miracle for sure!

These results indicated that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was able to garner two-thirds of the vote. Given the Ayatollahs miracle, the public viewed this result as anything but.

Protesters expressing their extreme objection to the election results then created a miracle of their own when up to one million marchers hit the streets forming a 5 to 6 mile parade of discontent, claims of fraud, and in some cases calling the government a dictatorship.

Meanwhile Ahmadinejad who made references to disgruntled fans after a football game in slighting the protesters, hung around for a couple of days before appearing a day late for a conference in Moscow. He missed some of the key events but he did get a chance to mention how bad the US economy was doing, neglecting to mention that Iran's economy is showing signs of falling off a cliff. If he remains president that is a real possibility.

Meanwhile the pragmatist in me knows that the greatest miracle of all would be a recanting of the election results and the president stepping down. The Ayatollahs have asked for an investigation of the election results to appease the fuming population.

The results of this investigation being conducted by the same folks that created the fraud in the first place are easier to determine than any of my stock picks. Look for the results of the investigation to acknowledge that the vote count was off by some meaningless percentage, not affecting the outcome and leaving the results as they stand.

The Ayatollahs are all for democracy as long as they get to choose who wins. Perhaps in the future they will simply default to the patterns of authoritarian rulers before them -- massive election rhetoric, with only one candidate on the ballot.

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Iran will waste four more years

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money.

Oil prices are off to a strong start this week, as traders are pushing prices higher in reaction to multiple concerns stemming out of the Middle East.

The first factor that is weighing on traders mind's is the Turkish invasion to Iraq. Tension between Turkey and the Kurds in Northern Iraq is nothing new to the area (and violence between the two goes all the way back to 1984), but the current activity is the first confirmed operation by Turkey since the United States began its Iraqi campaign in 2003.

Over the weekend, Turkey announced that one of its helicopters had gone down in Northern Iraq, killing 8 Turkish soldiers. In reaction to that news, Turkey stepped up its force by firing in excess of 40 salvos of artillery into the territory.