The peaceless pipe of partisanship, I guess.
Is it true or not that Cruz criticized a lack of action that he voted for?
This is not unforgivable or unrecoverable... Nobody expected perfection out of him. But he should be careful in future. This is writ small what he will see writ large if he does become president.
I don’t know the answer to your question, but perhaps this article by Ted Cruz in the Washington Post defending his position will help.
Here is what Cruz actually said and in context:
Sanctions on Putin for Ukraine: tyrants respond to weakness
Q: On Russia’s invasion of Ukraine:
CRUZ (VIDEO TAPE): A critical reason for Putin’s aggression has been President Obama’s weakness. That Putin fears no retribution. You better believe Putin sees in Benghazi four Americans are murdered and nothing happens. There is no retribution. You better believe that Putin sees that in Syria, Obama draws a red line and ignores the red line.
Q: (ON CAMERA): So how would you stand up? What would you do? Military action?
CRUZ: No. No, look, not at all.
Q: Sanctions? Would you do sanctions?
CRUZ: Absolutely, yes. There are a host of things we can do. Let’s rewind the clock a little bit. #1, don’t demonstrate weakness for five years. We have seen historically over and over again tyrants respond to weakness. We keep making that mistake with Putin. Putin is a KGB thug. When the protests began in Ukraine, the president should have stood unapologetically, emphatically for freedom. And when the US doesn’t speak for freedom, tyrants notice.
Source: ABC This Week 2014 series of 2016 presidential hopefuls , Mar 9, 2014
http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Ted_Cruz_Foreign_Policy.htm
The best I can make of this is that nobody ever authorized unilateral action against Syria. Cruz said that Obama should have take the matter to the Security Council, and what he opposed was Obama taking unilateral military action based on his “red line.”
More on Obama’s read line comments here:
http://www.factcheck.org/2013/09/obamas-blurry-red-line/