A Euro Tragedy
&gt;&gt; The reality, as the author describes, is that Syriza’s call for debt relief
should have been granted.<p>But that is 100% the failure of Syriza, not the Europeans. Syriza took this
perfectly sensible, perfectly legitimate demand and turned it into a circus
act, backed by a farcical Referendum [1] and fronted by the clownish antics of
Yanis Varoufakis.<p>A unique opportunity to reason with our European partners was squandered, just
so that Varoufakis could burnish his personna of the maverick economics
professor. And because Tsipras, who was in way over his head, an inexperienced
young prime minister trying to negotiate with the heavy-weights of European
politics, did not have the courage or the honesty to accept reality for what
it was: that no, we didn&#x27;t hold all the aces, no, the EU would not shed a tear
if we jumped off the Grexit cliff no matter how loudly Varoufakis proclaimed
it to be the divine truth; that, no, you cannot play chicken with frau Merkel,
you silly little boy.<p>And that the Europeans were not even out to get us. They needed something they
could present to their own citizens as a viable option. We gave them an
Aristophanean comedy instead, a shadow play of Karagiozis with all the bells
and whistles. And we paid the price, for the populism of our leaders, their
lack of seriousness and their incompetence.<p>And we still do.<p>_________<p>[1] The referendum question regarded an offer by the EU that had already been
withdrawn before the referendum was called. The text of the question itself
was so vague and complex that on the one hand it immediately became a running
joke with various memes, and on the other, allowed all sides in the debate to
claim victory and only served to muddle the waters even further on what &quot;The
Will of the People&quot; really was.