For Donald Trump, the buck stops . . . with Barack Obama.

As the Western world processed stomach-churning images of dead children, apparently murdered by chemical weapons, the president couldn't help but take a potshot at his predecessor. "These heinous actions by the Bashar al-Assad regime are a consequence of the past administration's weakness and irresolution," Trump said in a statement Tuesday afternoon. "President Obama said in 2012 that he would establish a 'red line' against the use of chemical weapons and then did nothing. The United States stands with our allies across the globe to condemn this intolerable attack."

As he ripped Obama, Trump mentioned neither Russia nor Iran. Both counties are actively propping up Assad's regime.

The president also offered no path forward, except to say that the savagery, which observers on the ground say killed at least 58, "cannot be ignored."

Asked how the U.S. will respond, Sean Spicer replied: "We'll talk about that soon."

This White House is stuck in permanent campaign mode. Several officials involved in internal administration discussions told the AP that the National Security Council had been preparing a different statement, until the president's closest advisers took over the process.

This has been a pattern during Trump's first 75 days in office. When it suits him, the president takes credit for his predecessor's successes. More often, he points the finger. Trump's unsubstantiated allegation that Obama "wiretapped" his office is the most memorable illustration, but there are many others. After the botched raid in Yemen that killed a Navy SEAL, for instance, the White House claimed the operation had been authorized by the Obama team.

Obama has repeatedly acknowledged that Syria was the biggest failure of his presidency, and he knows it will haunt his legacy. He notoriously said in August 2012 that Assad using chemical weapons would cross a "red line" that would change his "calculus" about whether to intervene. When the Butcher of Damascus did it anyway, using sarin to kill hundreds of innocents, Obama lacked the will to act unilaterally. So he punted to an even less courageous Congress. American credibility suffered. Assad's barbaric war crimes continued.

More for you News Trump changes relationship between White House, spy agencies

The timing of Trump's dig was curious, however. Just last week, Rex Tillerson and Nikki Haley said publicly that removing Assad is no longer a U.S. priority - breaking with western allies.

Even more incongruously, Trump vociferously opposed the very action he now attacks Obama for not taking. The billionaire posted an endless stream of tweets like these over several weeks in 2013, which make Tuesday's statement look quite hypocritical:

- "What will we get for bombing Syria besides more debt and a possible long term conflict? Obama needs Congressional approval."

- "AGAIN, TO OUR VERY FOOLISH LEADER, DO NOT ATTACK SYRIA - IF YOU DO MANY VERY BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN & FROM THAT FIGHT THE U.S. GETS NOTHING!"

- "President Obama, do not attack Syria. There is no upside and tremendous downside. Save your "powder" for another (and more important) day!"

- "The only reason President Obama wants to attack Syria is to save face over his very dumb RED LINE statement. Do NOT attack Syria,fix U.S.A."

- "We should stay the hell out of Syria, the "rebels" are just as bad as the current regime. WHAT WILL WE GET FOR OUR LIVES AND $ BILLIONS?ZERO"

- "If Obama attacks Syria and innocent civilians are hurt and killed, he and the U.S. will look very bad!"

- "How bad has our "leader" made us look on Syria. Stay out of Syria, we don't have the leadership to win wars or even strategize."

- "What I am saying is stay out of Syria."

- "Russia is sending a fleet of ships to the Mediterranean. Obama's war in Syria has the potential to widen into a worldwide conflict"

Trump has claimed repeatedly since taking office that he "inherited a mess." As he put it during his 77-minute press conference in February, "I inherited a mess. It's a mess. At home and abroad, a mess. . . . The Middle East is a disaster. (Also) North Korea. We're going to take care of it all. I just want to let you know I inherited a mess."

After the GOP's healthcare replacement package fell apart in the House, Trump announced that he will let the health care system fall apart. He thinks this will force Democrats to come to the negotiating table. The president reasons that Obama will surely get blamed for any problems with something called Obamacare.

A new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows why Trump's strategy is flawed. The nonpartisan group conducts a respected monthly poll of public attitudes about health care. When asked which of two statements came closer to their view, 6 in 10 Americans endorsed the statement: "Trump and Republicans in Congress are now in control of the government and they are responsible for any problems with it moving forward." Just over 3 in 10 chose the alternative statement: "President Obama and Democrats in Congress passed the law and they are responsible for any problems with it moving forward."

For context, the poll found that over 6 in 10 Americans say it's a "good thing" the House GOP bill went down. But that group is split evenly between those who do not want to repeal the law and those who want to repeal and replace the law but had concerns about the specific legislation.

The country is also split close to down the middle about next steps: 45 percent want to keep working on a plan to repeal and replace the 2010 law, and 49 percent think Trump and congressional Republicans should stop working on health care and move on to other priorities.

On the economy, the American people have a more nuanced view than the president.A Quinnipiac University poll published Tuesday is full of bad news for Trump. His approval rating is 35 percent. He's even underwater right now with whites and men. More than six in 10 registered voters nationally don't think he's honest, level-headed or shares their values. On the issues, the poll finds that 58 percent disapprove of how he's handling foreign policy and a 48 percent plurality doesn't think he's handling the economy well. The survey found that 52 percent think the economy is in excellent or good shape, while 45 percent say it's not so good or poor. Overall, 66 percent say Obama is more responsible than Trump for the current state of the economy.

When Obama left office in January, our Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 61 percent of Americans approved of his economic stewardship. That number was higher than at any point in his eight-year presidency, up from 50 percent in Jan. 2016 and 43 percent in Jan. 2014. So there is ample evidence that Americans were crediting him for the nation's improving economy before Trump took office.

Quinnipiac asked a series of questions in another poll last month on whether Obama or Trump should be credited with certain economic statistics. By more than 2 to 1 voters said Obama deserves more credit than Trump for the fact the unemployment rate has stayed under 5 percent. But a smaller 48 percent plurality credited Obama for the 200,000 jobs added in February, while 41 percent said Trump deserves credit. And 55 percent said Trump, not Obama, deserves more credit for the stock market's positive performance recently.

To be sure, Republicans often accused Obama of unfairly blaming George W. Bush late into his presidency. Because of the nature of the 2008 financial crisis, though, more voters always blamed Bush than Obama for the country's economic ills - including during the 2016 election, according to Gallup surveys conducted from 2009 through 2016. In its poll last summer, Gallup found that 64 percent of Americans thought Bush deserved a "great deal" or a "moderate amount" of blame for "current economic problems." Half, 50 percent, said Obama did.

- - -

THE BIGGER PICTURE

Foreign policy has dominated the opening chapters of the Trump administration to a degree the president clearly did not anticipate. If he's got 99 problems, Syria is now certainly one.

Trump is learning that the panaceas he promised so often as a candidate do not actually exist. "No one - not even President Obama, as far as I could tell - was satisfied with the Obama administration's approach to the conflict in Syria," Andrew Exum, who was an Obama appointee at the Pentagon, writes for The Atlantic. "But if you assembled all of the Obama administration's critics in one room, they would not agree on an obvious alternative. The problem is wicked enough to confound easy solutions, and each policy alternative had strategic and moral deficiencies."

Russia is now trying to blame rebels for the attack, instead of Assad. From the Post's Louisa Loveluck: "A Russian military spokesman on Wednesday said that Syrian warplanes had been targeting rebel workshops used to produce crude chemical weapons on the eastern outskirts of Khan Sheikhoun when the deaths began. 'The territory of this storage facility housed workshops to produce projectiles filled with toxic agents,' Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, the spokesman for Russia's Ministry of Defence, said in a recorded statement. His comments marked a rare admission that air strikes had taken place in the area. Moscow typically denies involvement in such mass casualty attacks, and has previously falsified video footage in an attempt to exonerate its war planes. . . . Russia also blamed the 2013 sarin attack on rebels attempting to provoke international intervention."

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., responded:

"The #Putin regime blatantly lies about #SyriaGasAttack Putin is an accomplice in this war crime committed by Assad ."

The U.N. Security Council will hold an emergency meeting Wednesday to discuss the attack, and international donors are gathered in Brussels to drum up billions in aid for Syria's eventual reconstruction. U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres called the chemical attack a "moment of truth" and expressed hope it will galvanize action. "The horrific events of Tuesday demonstrate that, unfortunately, war crimes are going on in Syria and that international humanitarian law (continues to be) violated frequently," he said.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said "Assad believes he can commit war crimes with impunity," and he challenged Trump to do something. The question now confronting Washington, he said, "is whether we will take any action to disabuse him of this murderous notion."

- - -

Three smart stories about Trump's broader foreign policy popped overnight:

1. "Trump embraces the Sunni autocrats," by The New Yorker's Robin Wright: "The first tangible steps in Trump's Middle East policy are taking shape . . . [with goals] to foster a bloc among often fractious Sunni leaders to counter the influence of Shiite Iran, take a larger role politically and physically in fighting extremism, and help navigate peace between Israel and the Palestinians. . . . Trump's strategy could, however, rejuvenate the old authoritarian order of sclerotic autocrats and impervious monarchies in the Middle East.These days, a common lament among Sunnis themselves is that they lack a vision, an ideology, or a leader to guide them. . . . Bitter rivalries for regional influence run deep ... A broader danger is that the Trump strategy-designed at the National Security Council, with almost no input from the State Department-could backfire."

Tom Malinowski, who was Obama's Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy and Human Rights until January, expressed concern: "We have traditionally acted in the Middle East in defense of interests and principles. We've never explicitly aligned ourselves with a bloc defined in religious terms. It's another thing to create the impression that we are aligning with Sunnis against Shiites-that we are effectively taking sides in a civilizational battle."

2. "For Trump, a Focus on U.S. Interests and a Disdain for Moralizing," by The New York Times's Peter Baker: "Mr. Trump has dispensed with what he considers pointless moralizing and preachy naïveté. . . . 'We would look like, to some degree, rather silly not acknowledging the political realities that exist in Syria,' said spokesman Sean Spicer. . . . He has taken foreign policy to its most realpolitik moment in generations, playing down issues of human rights or democracy that animated his predecessors, including Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Obama. . . . His foreign policy seems defined more by a transactional nationalism, rooted in the sense that the United States is getting ripped off. Rather than spreading American values, Trump's policy aims to guard American interests."

"It struck me that it was very Chinese in orientation," said Ian Bremmer,the founder and president of the Eurasia Group, a consultancy in Washington. "You take out all of the issues of American exceptionalism and values, you take out all the restraints and responsibilities of American alliances and architecture that are based on those values, and it creates a very different sense of foreign policy."

3. Trump's retrenchment on free trade, climate change and security alliances has created a leadership vacuum that is already working to Beijing's advantage. The Post's David Nakamura previews Thursday's summit: "Since Trump's unexpected victory in November, Chinese President Xi Jinping has moved to position his fast-developing nation as a defender of globalization, and he has accelerated Beijing's challenge to U.S. primacy in Asia. This budding shift of power dynamics has alarmed U.S. allies and partners in the region and raised the stakes as Trump prepares to welcome Xi for a two-day summit starting Thursday at his Mar-a-Lago estate in South Florida. The two are expected to discuss a wide range of issues, including North Korea's mounting nuclear threat and a lopsided trade imbalance in China's favor, in what aides called a meeting aimed at establishing a working relationship. ... More broadly, however, the Trump administration has not developed or publicly enunciated a coherent policy to deal with China's growing economic and military clout. And Trump, who called China a currency manipulator during his campaign, has delivered mixed messages on how far he is willing to go to confront Beijing."