Shifteh Ansari

Onlyiran

That was beautiful LOL.

After reading all those serious comments and all of a sudden i come up against this one and laughed my Sargord off:)

I am sure his wife knows better what to do in a situation like this one. I bet she has everything packed and ready to leave the country the moment he gets home.

His Unemployment Ran out

..and with the Republicans threatening to filibuster any extension of the unemployment benefits, he had to go back to Iran!

There is also another plausible explanation.

Like Lindsay Lohan, he painted a secret message on his nails to tell Mahmoud that he is coming back!

........

I agree with hamsade ghadimi's analysis and cyclicforward's prediction..........once he lands in Iran......he will be jailed or executed for treason.......I don't think IRI believes the guy was kidnapped.......IRI is trying to lure him back....& "take care of" him later........

    I can't believe he wants to jump into lion's den.....

Once he goes back, IRI is going to force him to confesss......and then he may want to come back to US.....but that may be too late....and then he may start to tell the true truth! 

I also agree with MPD that the guy has MPD!

Bavafa

That sounds plausible.  Maybe they needed time (between May and now) to develop a scenario which could work better than just handing over a person-of-former-interest.  Of course I think they should have taken their time to cook up a story that looked a little more believable!  With things having hit such lows in the "real" world of spies, defectors, and state secrets, Hollywood will have a hard time selling complicated and glamorous stories of espionage and treachery in the future!

That Shahram Amiri does not sound like a very smart man to me!  I find it scary that he worked on anything that needed a high IQ.

His McDonald's tab was bankrupting the CIA. That's why

they gave him back to the IRI.  Have you seen the "before and after" pictures of him?  Lay off the Big Macs buddy...

could this be part of a prisoner swap deal???

I guess we will know soon if the three US "hikers" get released soon.

Mehrdad

no matter what happened, he is better off NOT going back

If he goes back, my guess is that he will be tortured by IRI to the fullest to see what state/nuclear secrets were revealed in his months of isolation by CIA/Mosaad.  He is better off staying put in the west.

Hilary Clinton just issued a statement

//www.monstersandcritics.com/news/middleeast/news/article_1570554.php/Clinton-says-Iranian-scientist-free-to-go

I guess CIA found out that he was not a Andre Sakharov, nor a

Von Braun!

So they let him go due to lack of any intelligence value, minus his Green card.  :)

Thanks Mammad

I agree with you.  It is very convoluted and confusing. Some of this seems so amateurishly staged that it could be comic if not so serious.

We are so used to watching badly produced and silly IRIB productions of "confessions" and "arrests."  But the YouTube series of Shahram Amiri confessions and tell-all's were simply stupid!

On the issue of Shahram Amiri's lack of importance or significance post-abduction/defection, I think that's ludicrous, too.  Who would want to defect or cooperate with charlatans who decided "kilooee" whether your knowledge makes your life worth safeguarding in the future?!! They will never get another source to cooperate with them this way!

This just doesn't make sense, no matter how worthless his information was or became.  

I think the defection scenario is more viable than an abduction scenario.

I think hamsade ghadimi analyzed the situation well

I like the analysis offered by hamsade ghadimi in his comment. Beyond that, I don't think this story is that important. The real important story is what is happening in Bazar and the fact that in past few days some ayatollahs have strongly criticized either khamenei or IRI' s policies. Gradually, the opposition is becoming wider and that is what counts. Shahram Amiri's type story is really not significant.  Especially since at our level, we really do not know much so all we can do is to speculate.

Shifteh khaanoum

I am not aware of a link between Amiri and Professor Alimohammadi. I talked to three people in Tehran who were friends and collaborators of Alimohammadi. One is a former Ph.D. student of mine, two others are my own research collaborators in Tehran. None said anything about it.

After the original article about him on Tehran Bureau, there was an update too with a lot more information

//www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbure...

Mammad

The State Department says:

WASHINGTON — A missing Iranian nuclear scientist, who has sought refuge at a Pakistani embassy office in Washington and who Iran claims was abducted, is free to return to his homeland, the State Department said Tuesday.
It was the latest development in a murky case that has been shrouded in mystery since the scientist, Shahram Amiri, disappeared while on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in June 2009.
"He has been in the United States of his own free will and obviously he is free to go," department spokesman P.J. Crowley said. "In fact, he was scheduled to travel to Iran yesterday but was unable to make all of the necessary arrangements to reach Iran through transit countries."
Crowley said Amiri was at the Pakistani embassy. "He traveled there on his own," he added, but would not elaborate. Other officials said Amiri arrived there Monday evening.
Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, told reporters at a news conference in Madrid that Amiri was found after having been kidnapped during the Hajj and taken to the U.S. against his will. He demanded that Amiri be allowed to return home "without any obstacle."
In brief remarks to reporters, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Amiri was free to go.
"These are decisions that are his alone to make," Clinton said. "In contrast, Iran continues to hold three young Americans against their will, and we reiterate our request that they be released and allowed to return to their families on a humanitarian basis."
Clinton was referring to three American hikers who have been held by Tehran since July 2009 on an accusation of illegally entering the country. They have not been charged.
Read the rest here: //www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5...

Shifteh Khaanoum

Though I respect Rozen very highly, I find the information suspect. If Amiri was a CIA asset (which I doubt), then, why does he want to go back to Iran? Unless, of course, he also knows about other CIA "assets" in Iran (I doubt that too) and thinks that that would save him.

This is all too convoluted. We have not heard the last words yet.

Mammad

What about Dr. Massoud Ali Mohammadi?

At one point it was said that the assassinated Iranian scientist Massoud Ali Mohammadi had been a friend of Shahram Amiri's.  Ali Mohammadi had resigned from his position at a research center two weeks prior to his death, and the day before the explosion which took his life, his home had been searched by Ministery of Intelligence agents.

//www.roozonline.com/persian/news/newsitem/ar...

What happened to Shahram Amiri

It appears that he was abducted to from intelligence of Saudi that worked for the interest of Israeli service. They took him and realized that he has not much to contribute, and perhaps the Saudi intelligence along with Israelis made a mistake about his importance, so they let him go.

He on the other hand now wants to gain some advantage in this equation and acting as if he ran out, while the US has freed him to do what he wishes.

Most probably there was some small amount of useful information that he gave to US, but not vital enough to go under their protection or be killed afterward. Now everyone is going to act innocent as nothing was gain by either side.

Was he a CIA agent before Mecca?

In an article by Laura Rozen on Politico, Iran
nuclear scientist seeks refuge at Pakistan embassy,she quotes ABC news:

"Behind the scenes, the situation has become so grave that American officials fear Amiri could re-defect, according to the people briefed on the situation," ABC News reported June 28.

Officials told the network that Amiri operated as a CIA asset in Iran "for several years before his defection and provided evidence that Iran continued a program to produce nuclear weapons." It's not clear if by making such allegations, U.S. officials were trying to dissuade Amiri from attempting to return to Iran."

Amiri, the master operative

Please do not underestimate the smarts and progressive nature of the Islamic regime and their operatives all over the world. After all, we're looking at a superpower-to-be or, superpower-in-the-making for crying outloud. Mr Amiri used tactics and skills he acquired from the Islamic regime to elude and escape from CIA's custody. This is nothing compared to all the military power and intelligence that the Islamists have gathered recently. The invisible energy that Mr Amiri receives, however, can only be attributed to the assistance that the islamists in Iran are blessed with from none other than their very own; Mehdi, the invisible Imam!

____________

IRAN FIRST

____________

He defected initially

I believe that he initially defected, and may have provided some information about the Fordow enrichment facility near Qom (under construction). But, two things happened:

1. Iran's nuclear program has been highly compartmentized. This is due to assassination (Ardeshir Hassanpour) and defection (Ali Reza Asgari). So, each person knows about the project that he/she has been working on, and at most the most directly linked project, but nothing else. So, Amiri may have known about Fordow, but nothing else. The best evidence for this is that, aside from Fordow, neither the IAEA nor the US has made any "startling" revelation about Iran. Even Fordow was not that significant.

2. But, either the US did not deliver on its promises after it became clear that he did not know much, or he felt threatened about his wife and child back in Iran, or both. So, he decided to go back, regardless of the potential harm. The US has also lost interest, and it has become an embarrassment for it.

See

//www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbure...

and

//www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2010/06/mystery-videos.html 

Mammad

I think it is certainly

I think it is certainly plausible for him to have been kidnapped or possibly defected to US, but I highly doubt it that he was able to escape from CIA and all other agents with all the drama that has been involved and now go to the Pakistani embassy.

He certainly does not have much future in Iran in his line of work or study and his usefulness for CIA is over, so not much future here either. Perhaps a used car salesman? He may have the right credentials (deceiving others) for a car salesman.

Mehrdad

It's so clear to me,

...Shahram Amiri is suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder.

The US should stop meddling in other countries' affairs.

LOL at the posts, especailly Maryam who is hiding in the USA.

How did this person get into the FREE country of USA?!?  Using flying carpet? LOL.

After all CIA and USA government would not lie, wouldn't they??
This is not like it not happened before??

Ever since it was created, the CIA has meddled in other countries' affairs, toppling governments in the process, tens of thousands of innocents were killed. Did they abduct the scientist? YES; the point is that's the kind of thing CIA does.

The US should stop meddling in other countries' affairs.

possible story: the u.s.

possible story: the u.s. thought of amiri as a high valued target and convinced him to defect. knowing that he's acutally not high-valued, amiri took the offer and thought he will find a way to bring his family.  once in the u.s., the americans found out he's not high-valued and doesn't have any valuable info, the iri threatened harm to amiri's family, and he got homesick for khoreshte ghormeh sabzi. now, he wants to go back and the americans couldn't be happier if he did. anyway, something along that line.

the part about escaping from cia kidnappers who've been torturing him is laughable. even sean connery couldn't get away with that. :)

Knee jerk thought process

I think this gentleman did not really understand what he was getting into and now he wants to go back. It seems to me Amiri is a bad decision maker and he does not really the issues deeply. One thing for sure is that he will be executed on the spot once he is on the ground in Tehran.

"Oops, I left my wife and child behind"!

He left his wife and child back in Iran, so obviously the IRI would do anything to them (read torture, imprisonment, etc) to get the guy back.

All I can say: IRR/IRI is lying!

about this issue!