Temporary triumph for Tsipras, punishment for debtors and creditors

Never in the field of economic conflict has so much been owed to so many by so few. The warring over Greece’s future has been a debtor v creditor battle. So far the Greeks seem to be winning. In achieving a decisive 61 per cent to 39 per cent No vote in Sunday’s referendum, Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, has implemented the credo attributed to his forebear Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great: divide et impera.

The failure of the creditor countries, led by Germany and the Netherlands, to recognise a central maxim of guerrilla fighting – the enemy will always surprise – provides a key reason for the Oxi win. If you’re outnumbered, practise the unorthodox. Tearing up the rules of Brussels conduct, Tsipras and Yanis Varoufakis, his finance minister-cum-field marshal, have outmanoeuvred and divided the surplus states by constantly re-engaging, over five months, from unexpected, demanding and outrageous battle positions.

The fruits of victory will turn sour. Creditors and debtors alike will be punished. Greece faces a wrenching period of infighting and pain, during which devaluation-stamped banknotes, rationing of high street goods and exchange controls enforced by armed police will be only the least of the ills.

The euro states must confront contagion and schism in their ranks, both political and economic.

The Syriza partisans arrived in power in January on the horns of an impossible trilemma. They wanted simultaneously to end austerity, gain debt relief and remain in the euro. The chances are that Greece will say goodbye to the single currency. It lacks the means to stay. If they are forced out, the Athenians will go neither quietly nor with good grace. They will threaten to bring the edifice crashing down around them.

For the moment, the No vote gives the Greek government authority and momentum to fight the next stage. Adding to Tsipras’ temporary sense of triumph, the creditor states themselves administered the coup de grace.

All along, the Greeks have mercilessly exposed fault-lines in the creditor ranks. The International Monetary Fund official who haplessly briefed journalists on Thursday that Greece (as the Athens government and many other observers had been saying all along) needed massive debt relief – and, by the way, would the Europeans kindly foot the bill? – handed Tsipras and Varoufakis a propaganda coup. The IMF guillotined itself. Christine Lagarde, its hyperactive managing director, should have stayed in Washington masterminding operations rather than uselessly and visibly trailblazing around Europe.