Bush Nudges Participants, Then Retreats to Sidelines : Diplomacy: Aides say that before the President would intervene, the Arabs and Israelis have a long way to go.

With his impassioned plea to Israelis and Arabs here Wednesday to propel themselves toward peace, President Bush played the role of a deal maker who weighs in with a mighty shove at a carefully chosen moment, then backs away to let the parties thrash out the nasty details.

But if Bush is ever to wade more deeply into the morass of Middle East politics, the parties themselves must first show the wary President that there is a way to extricate himself.

Senior White House advisers say there may come a time when Bush himself acts as a mediator, perhaps following the model set by President Jimmy Carter in brokering the 1978 Camp David accord between Israel and Egypt.

For now, however, the halfway nature of Bush’s role was perhaps symbolized not by the emotion of his words but the haste of his departure from Madrid, less than an hour after opening the peace conference at the Royal Palace.

“There’s nothing magical about a President jumping in with both feet,” a senior Administration official said in defense of Bush’s departure.

As Bush flew back to Washington aboard Air Force One after a mere 26 hours in Madrid, U.S. officials said the idea that the President might at some point assume a central role is, at minimum, “wildly premature.” Before the President is likely to intervene, the officials indicated, the long-warring Arabs and Israelis will first have to prove the truth of his declaration that “history need not be man’s master.”

“They’re going to have to learn to talk to each other,” a senior official had said earlier. “They’re even going to have learn to look at each other. It’s going to take time.”

To be sure, Bush’s reluctance to talk about the peace talks before they began came to an eloquent end with his dramatic avowal that “peace in the Middle East need not be a dream.”

As a President who has delighted in a new age, in which children may at last be unburdened of nuclear terror, he included what sounded like a deeply personal touch as he mourned “too many generations of children whose haunted eyes show only fear.”

“Let us resolve to do it for the children,” Bush said.

But even as he embraced what he called a “mission of hope,” Bush warned: “Let no one mistake the magnitude of this challenge.”

And his parting words to the conference to which he is unlikely to return included the sobering observation that it could well face “interruptions.”

Bush’s standoffishness on most Middle East matters is uncharacteristic. An activist President, he so delights in surprise that he is sometimes his Administration’s only reliable spokesman. On the delicate questions at the heart of the Arab-Israeli dispute, however, Bush has ceded that role to Secretary of State James A. Baker III in a pattern that Administration officials say is likely to continue.

In contrast with Bush, Baker clearly intends to play a central role in the weeks ahead. He has apparently scrapped plans to appoint a separate Middle East envoy, effectively leaving himself, at least for now, to continue as the chief U.S. mediator.

Such an arrangement seems to be a comfortable one for Bush, who shares a close friendship with Baker, and it may help to insulate the President from the taint of failure if peace efforts collapse.

Bush’s stance has its drawbacks: It sometimes leaves him appearing tentative and halting. Asked at a news conference Tuesday whether he believed peace could be secured only if Israel traded land for peace, Bush attempted to dodge the question and finally issued a stumbling answer.

“I told you what the invitation said--based on 242 and 338,” Bush said, referring to the U.N. resolutions that call for the land for peace trade-off but refusing to mouth the words himself.

Later, in replying to Middle East questions at the side of Spanish President Felipe Gonzalez, Bush seemed almost to footnote his answers with references to previous comments by Baker and left no doubt about whom he prefers to speak for the Administration. “I’d have to refer that question to the secretary of state,” he said.

For a President under fire for his preoccupation with foreign affairs, however, the return to a backstage role may prove a political benefit as the shaky U.S. economy increasingly looms as an election-year issue for next year.

And as attention in Madrid turns today to the potentially explosive presentations to the peace conference by Arab and Israeli delegations, Bush will be in Texas beginning the pressing business of fund-raising for his expected reelection campaign.