It is mechanisms of threat cognition in international relations that are under consideration in the article. As example, peculiarities of the perception by the Russian and by the American presidents of possible threat of the Iranian nuclear program are analyzed. The results of the research give grounds to the conclusion that the content of the process of threat cognition consists in the construction by the political leader of his judgment by comparing characteristics of the identification, the status and the role components of the self-image of the state and of the image of the «other» as possible source of danger.