Again, you're arguing about half the story. Odd that your links are Time Magazine, HuffPo, and the NY Times. It's like you're oblivious to the fact that you literally are a sterotype of Left Wing thought. (P.S., had you just read the entire wiki link you posted, you'd have seen some of this.) The main reason for this was that Obama was pushing for more "inclusiveness" within the Iraqi government itself. His administration wanted the largely Shia dominated government to give up much of it's power in the name of "inclusion" (a term that means almost nothing to anyone outside of Western Liberalism, BTW) to the Sunni minority in it's country that has seen it as it's enemy and had brutally, systematically oppressed it for the last 30+ years. Shocking that that didn't work. Oh well, at least he got to campaign for re-election on having "ended" the War in Iraq.