Regarding their positions on the regimes for the control of weapons of mass destruction, Egypt and Iran render themselves interesting objectives for comparison: Both are located in the same regional (security) environment, hold significant regional influence, and consider themselves leaders within the Non-Aligned Movement. They are united in their critical stance towards basic arms control norms and/or their prevalent interpretation. But when it comes to the choice of means and strategies to reach their political goals, the differences between both are striking: Egypt is a critical, often difficult, but overall constructive, subtle and innovative actor hesitating to embark upon strategies that risk severely undermining the NPT regime. Iran, in contrast, pursues a more intransigent, even obstructive opposition, seeming to be prepared to risk even failure of negotiations in order to get its agenda through. The paper traces these differences back to different political identities, self-perceptions and domestic ideologies: Egypt derives a considerable amount of special pride from its reputation as credible and responsible diplomatic “heavy weight” that it has been cultivating since decades. Deviating from that course would not only cause cognitive dissonances in Egypt’s self-image, but also result in a loss of soft power resources. Likewise, Iran’s perceived role as “avenger of the dispossessed”, deeply shaped by Shia Islam’s emphasis on suffering and martyrdom and disinclination to compromise solutions, might serve as an identity-based explanation for its readiness to adopt extreme political positions.
