Iran's Rouhani straddling two realities with comments on nukes, Israel, experts say

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's finger-pointing at Israel and refusal to acknowledge the Holocaust may undercut his image as a moderate in the West - but will help keep the hard-liners at home at bay, analysts said Thursday.

'He's in a delicate position,' Geneive Abdo, a fellow at the non-partisan Stimson Center, said of the center-leaning cleric who replaced the incendiary Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in August.

In his first international interview since his election, Rouhani gave NBC News' Ann Curry new indications that he's anxious to resolve the impasse over his country's nuclear program and has the political backing to cut a deal.

But he also called Israel a 'warmongering' occupier and sidestepped a question on whether he agrees with his predecessor that the Holocaust is a myth, saying he's not a historian.

While Washington takes a wait-and-see approach, Iran experts said Rouhani's remarks suggest an interest in engaging with the West while reflecting the political reality of sharing power with the Ayatollah and the Revolutionary Guard.

Despite promising comments on subjects ranging from Syria to citizen freedom, Rouhani needs to do more than talk before President Obama moves beyond letter-writing to a face-to-face meeting, analysts and some politicians said.

'There's a little bit of irrational exuberance about Rouhani,' said Suzanne Maloney, a fellow in the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.

'We need to be a little cautious,' she added. 'Because Rouhani is a cautious individual.'

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the administration is interested in 'testing the seriousness' of Rouhani's new approach.

House Speaker John Boehner's take: 'Actions speak louder than words.'

David Lom / NBC News

Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) said Obama should not sit down with Rouhani during the U.N. General Assembly next week without preconditions.

'I believe - as Prime Minister Netanyahu has warned - that he's a wolf in sheep's clothing and that this is not in fact a new tack in leadership from the Iranians, or that there really does exist a moderate there,' she said.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said she hopes that Rouhani's middle-of-the-road words are 'not just a public relations campaign' as Israel's Netanyahu has argued, but struck a more hopeful note.

'We're all looking forward to his speech to the United Nations, to perhaps a meeting with the president,' she said. 'I don't know if that's a reality. But again, any engagement, any diplomatic efforts are welcome.'

On the subject of Israel, Rouhani's diplomacy took a back seat; he called it a 'usurper government' that 'does injustice to the people of the region, and has brought instability to the region, with its warmongering policies.'

Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that was to be expected.

'The rejection of Israel's existence has been one of Iran's ideological principles since the 1979 revolution,' Sadjadpour said. 'It will be very difficult for Rouhani to substantively change this policy, but he can refrain from being gratuitously hostile, like Ahmadinejad.

'Iran's hard-liners wish death to Israel. Iran's moderates merely wish Israel terminal illness.'

Rouhani did avoid the 'virulent rhetoric' that Ahmedinejad and other Iranian leaders have used to talk about Israel, Maloney noted, but withholding any criticism would have made him sound two-faced.

'There's always a concern that Iranians will speak with one voice to the West in order to win approval here and erode the international community's will to impose sanctions,' she said.

She said she was 'disappointed' that Rouhani did not take the opportunity to disavow Ahmedinejad's previous denials of the Holocaust - just days after his foreign minister tweeted Rosh Hashana wishes.

Abdo thought it would have been remarkable if he had.

'That's off the table,' she said, adding, 'We should not assess the degree of change in Iran based on their views on Israel.'

NBC News' Carrie Dann, Tom Curry and Frank Thorp contributed to this report.