WASHINGTON — American air power could play an important role in reversing the Sunni insurgent offensive in Iraq, current and former American military officials said on Friday, but it would be most effective with improved intelligence about insurgent targets and if the United States were willing to deploy small teams of advisers to call in airstrikes.

“We have some experience with this,” said James M. Dubik, the retired Army lieutenant general who trained Iraqi forces during the surge. “If we want to do it, we know how to do it.”

Despite skeptics, particularly Democrats, who say that American airstrikes are unlikely to change the course of events in Iraq, President Obama is considering them among a range of options to help the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

Airstrikes could also be a way to project power to help break the momentum of the advancing Sunni extremists, who are threatening the country’s Shiite-led government in Baghdad, without sending American ground troops back into combat in Iraq — a step Mr. Obama ruled out on Friday.