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
Good background. Cruz’s position is coherent and not hypocritical, nor is he trying to have it one way here and another way there. Milbank is being willfully obtuse in not recognising that Cruz could oppose military action against Assad while at the same time pointing out that from Putin’s perspective Obama’s “red line” walkback looked like weakness. The root problem is that Obama’s red line was dumb and was doomed to create only bad outcomes — either fighting for ISIS or looking weak. That was Obama’s screwup, but Milbank does a subtle twist to tar Cruz.