KUWAIT CITY — President Bush launched a new round of personal diplomacy with Gulf nations yesterday aimed at convincing Arab countries to support U.S. efforts to achieve Palestinian-Israeli peace, contain Iran and stabilize Iraq.

Bush arrived here for meetings last night with Emir Sabah Ahmed al-Sabah, ruler of this tiny nation rescued by the U.S. and its allies after the 1990 invasion by Iraq. Bush will also visit Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates; officials say a major subject for conversation on the tour is how to cope with the rising regional influence of Iran and its nuclear ambitions.

In appearances this week, Bush and his advisers said they would also be pressing Arab governments to support the nascent peace negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians.

Aboard Air Force One yesterday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters the Arab countries took a "big step" in coming to the Annapolis, Md., peace conference that launched the new round of peace talks. Kuwait was one of two Arab countries that did not attend; Iraq was the other.

"Some of this will happen over time," she said.

Before flying to Kuwait, Bush ended an intensive two days of diplomacy devoted to jump-starting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks by engaging in some traditional sightseeing.

Bush began his day in Jerusalem with an emotional visit to Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial, where he laid a wreath in the Hall of Remembrance and rekindled an eternal flame. The president donned a yarmulke and teared up during the tour, according to Yad Vashem's chairman, Avner Shalev, who accompanied the president.

Shalev also said that Bush weighed in on the historical debate over whether the Allies should have bombed the German concentration camps. During World War II, American officials denied requests to bomb the camps, citing several reasons, including the assertions that the bombings would be ineffective and drain military resources. Holocaust survivors have pressed previous U.S. presidents about the issue.

During the tour yesterday, Bush looked at aerial photographs the Allied forces had taken of Auschwitz and called over Rice to talk about it. "We should have bombed it," Shalev quoted Bush as saying.