WASHINGTON: In naming two new commanders for Iraq, President George W. Bush has set the stage for a major shift in strategy but analysts question how much effect any US military leader can have on the war at this point.

Adm. William Fallon takes over as head of US Central Command, the regional headquarters that covers the Middle East, and Army Lt-Gen David Petraeus will be promoted to become the top US general in Baghdad.

Fallon already has experience heading a joint command, which includes Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force assets, as the current head of US Pacific Command.

Although he will have a significant role in Iraq planning, he faces plenty of other challenges on his new patch, including the war in Afghanistan and increasing US concerns about Iran’s nuclear programme.

That means much of the public attention on US operations in Iraq will focus on Petraeus, currently head of the US Army Combined Arms Centre at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

A media-friendly, articulate warrior-scholar with a doctorate from Princeton University, he has a reputation for viewing military power as much more than the use of force.

He led the US Army’s 101st Airborne Division in the 2003 Iraq invasion and won plaudits for working closely with local leaders to stabilise the northern city of Mosul, getting involved in everything from privatisation to local elections.

“We knew that in this kind of endeavour you have to generate early wins, you’ve got to achieve early momentum and then you’ve got to maintain it,” he told Reuters in 2003 at his Mosul headquarters, a former palace of Saddam Hussein.

Petraeus later led efforts to train Iraqi security forces and most recently he has overseen an overhaul of the US military’s counterinsurgency manual that stresses the importance of understanding local politics and culture.

But he faces a deadlier, more complex mix of security problems than during his previous tours in Iraq.

Attacks on US and Iraqi forces and Iraqi civilians are at their highest levels since the invasion and sectarian violence between Shia and Sunni Muslims has eclipsed the Sunni insurgency and Al Qaeda attacks as the biggest threat.

“General Petraeus can be counted on to be as competent as possible. But it’s quite obvious that he’s walking into a situation where the United States doesn’t control events anymore,” said military analyst Anthony Cordesman from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies think-tank.

“US military operations are only one part of the equation, and not the dominant one at that,” said Cordesman, a prominent military scholar in Washington.

Bush is contemplating a short-term increase of up to 20,000 US troops into Iraq as part of his new strategy, expected to be announced next week. But analysts say that move alone would have only a limited impact at best.

They see the only solution to sectarian tensions as reconciliation between the Shia majority, which was oppressed under Saddam, and the Sunni minority.

Responsibility for that process rests with Iraq’s Shia-led government, not the 132,000 US troops in the country, they say.

“You could put a Marine or a soldier on every street corner in Baghdad and it wouldn’t make a difference until they do the reconciliation,” said Lawrence Korb, a former assistant secretary of defence now at the Centre for American Progress.

—Reuters