Americans blame George Bush, not Obama, for Iraq crisis

Voters think Obama is doing a terrible job handling the deteriorating situation in Iraq — but they're at least somewhat sympathetic to how he got stuck in the mess in the first place.

By nearly a 2-1 margin — 51 percent to 27 percent —voters blame George W. Bush and not Obama for the situation in Iraq, according to a new Quinnipiac poll. At the same time, 58 percent think Obama made the right choice in pulling U.S. troops from Iraq at the end of 2011.

That said, a scant 37 percent approve of the president's overall approach to Iraq, down from a high of 61 percent three years ago.

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