Who, pray tell, is manipulating oil prices?

All of you who had visions of oil companies in your head, you fail this quiz. These guys are the true masters of oil price manipulation:

U.S. crude prices climbed a dollar to over $73 on Monday after Iran hinted it might use oil flows as a weapon in its nuclear dispute with the West and problems at U.S. refineries spurred worries over fuel supplies.

If I were in the government or oil ministry of any oil producing nation, I'd be laughing my tail off and hoping that Iran strings this nuclear dispute out as long as possible. All Iran has to do is run out an minor official to make an off handed comment about oil supply, and the price goes up a buck. As long as the world economy continues to absorb price increases, OPEC, the original big oil, will just sit back and laugh.