After the great Russian spy swap farce we now have a real puzzle. Fellow called Shahram Amiri who was a researcher at Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation went missing in June 2009 while on a pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. Now a fellow of the same name has surfaced in the Pakistani Embassy in the US claiming to have been kidnapped and wanting to go home. The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton has said that he had been visiting the US voluntarily and is free to go back to Iran. In between there have been videos showing Amiri lookalikes claiming that he had been kidnapped by US agents and tortured, that he was studying in the US of his own accord and a third one in which claims to have escaped US custody and was in hiding. News reports claim that he has given extensive information about Iran's nuclear program. Many interesting theories come to mind. 1. It may be that he was indeed kidnapped and given a taste of water boarding. 2. He may have defected to the US and then has been forced to change his mind to protect his family. As Iranian he will be acutely aware of what the regime does to its opponents. This very Islamic Republic condemns women to death by stoning for adultery on very flimsy evidence and Ahmadinejad denied there is homosexuality in Iran but uses rape, both straight and homosexual, for punishing opponents. So Amiri might be wanting to return to save his family. 3. It is also possible that he was sent by Iran to feed wrong information to the Americans like Ahmed Chalabi did to get the US to kill Saddam Hussein who was feared and hated by Iran. Perhaps whether he lives or dies in Iran may give us a clue.