Successful War in Iraq?

When I first think of this question, the war in Iraq seemed like a waste of time and money, as well as unnecessary reason to lose many human lives. In this process, new conflicts arose, and the nation was divided on their opinions of the war. The U.S. went into Iraq looking for nuclear weapons and when there were none to be found, the new mission was to diminish terrorism and promote democracy.
However after listening to President Obama’s speech on the war’s end, I agree that there were some achievements made from the war. As Obama stated in his recent speech, “Iraq's not a perfect place. It has many challenges ahead. But we're leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self reliant Iraq with a representative government that was elected by its people. We're building a new partnership between our nations and we are ending a war not with a final battle but with a final march toward home. This is an extraordinary achievement.” A country like Iraq cannot change its form of government quickly, there’s only so much support America can provide. America has helped to put Iraq in a new progressive direction, which is the most that can be done for now. If this is true, and America has helped Iraq as much as was possible, I believe the war in Iraq was somewhat of a success.