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- Around four-in-10 respondents in a new Insider poll said Bush is the president most responsible for the outcome of the Afghanistan war.
- Biden ranked second in the Insider poll, with 27% of respondents saying he's most responsible.
- Biden faces widespread criticism over his handling of the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
More Americans blame former President George W. Bush for America's failure in Afghanistan than any other president that succeeded him, according to a new Insider poll.
Around four-in-10 respondents said Bush is most responsible for the war's outcome – the Taliban regained power despite the US's nearly 20-years of involvement there – ranking him ahead of former Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump as well as current commander-in-chief Joe Biden.
Insider surveyed 1,105 respondents from August 16-17 through SurveyMonkey Audience. Respondents were asked to rank nine entities in order of how responsible each were for the outcome of the War in Afghanistan. Here is the ranking, based on the percentage of people who placed each entity in their top three:
- The Taliban, 55% ranked among top three most responsible
- Afghan Leadership, 48%
- Afghan Military, 41%
- George W. Bush, 34%
- United States Military Leadership, 31%
- Joseph Biden, 29%
- Barack Obama, 21%
- Donald Trump, 22%
- United States Military, 20%
Looking strictly at the four presidents in the survey, 38% of respondents ranked Bush as the president most responsible for the outcome, 27% Biden, 19% Trump and 12% Obama.
Bush ordered the US invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks. The Taliban, which controlled the country at the time, had allowed Afghanistan to become a safehaven for Osama bin Laden and his terror group Al Qaeda. The US aimed to destroy Al Qaeda, which was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, via the invasion. Shortly after the 2001 invasion, Bush rejected an offer by the Taliban to discuss handing over bin Laden in exchange for the US to stop bombing Afghanistan.
By December 2001, the Taliban was in retreat and bin Laden fled to Pakistan. The terror leader would eventually be killed by US Navy SEALs in an operation in Pakistan in 2011 under the Obama administration, but America's war in Afghanistan continued for another decade as the Taliban waged an insurgency against the US and its allies.
Obama oversaw a massive surge in US troops in Afghanistan during his first term. He sought to bring US troops home by the end of his second term, but failed to accomplish this.
Trump in February 2020 brokered a deal with the Taliban to see the US withdraw troops within 14 months, which emboldened the militants and left Afghan forces demoralized. By the time Trump left office, there were roughly 2,500 US troops left in Afghanistan.
Biden, who's overseen the US military drawdown and has received widespread criticism over its handling, defended his decision to rapidly remove all troops from the country on Monday. Though recent polling has shown relatively strong support for the withdrawal itself, many have disapproved of the execution of the pullout - particularly in relation to how the Biden administration has approached helping Afghans who assisted the US during the war.
Overall, most Americans placed the blame on the Taliban for the crisis in Afghanistan. Roughly 55% of respondents put the militant group in their top three choices of who is most responsible for the war's outcome. Nearly half of the respondents, 48%, put Afghan leadership in their top three. Respondents also said the Afghan military was more to blame for the war's outcome than the US military.
The poll comes in light of major developments in the war-torn nation. In a little over a week, Taliban forces took over most of Afghanistan's cities and the capital Kabul, leading to the sudden collapse of the US-backed Afghan government on Sunday. Afghans, afraid of a possible return to strict Taliban rule and desperate to leave the country, flooded the Kabul airport. The US, in the midst of its military withdrawal, plunged into a chaotic evacuation of American citizens from its embassy.
SurveyMonkey Audience polls from a national sample balanced by census data of age and gender. Respondents are incentivized to complete surveys through charitable contributions. Generally speaking, digital polling tends to skew toward people with access to the internet. SurveyMonkey Audience doesn't try to weight its sample based on race or income. Polling data collected 1,105 respondents August 16-17, 2021 with a 3 percentage point margin of error.