Richard Seymour in Lenin's Tomb:
Syriza has been defeated in the first round of negotiations.After a period of enjoyable defiance, during which they won the backing of the overwhelming majority of the Greek people – 80% according to a poll taken before the latest deal, published in today's Avgi – they have come back with small change. Pushed to the point where they were at risk of a collapse of the banking system, and unprepared for a Grexit (and thus unable to use it as a bargaining chip), they accepted the most comprehensive drubbing.
Tsipras has tried to put the best possible gloss on this, but what he said was delusional. He said that the deal shows that Europe stands for mutually beneficial compromise. No such thing. It stands, as Schauble crowed, for Syriza being forced to implement austerity against its own mandate. It stands for the crushing of national democracy.
Tsipras said that the deal creates the framework for Syriza to address the humanitarian crisis. Not with the commitment to a primary surplus and troika oversight, it doesn't. Not with the agreement that Syriza will not 'unilaterally' roll back austerity, it doesn't. We can admit that a 1.5% primary surplus is better than a 4.5% primary surplus. Yet even 1.5% in a depressed economy is harsh, and coupled with troika assessment of reforms for fiscal sustainability (according to neoliberal maxims), this amounts to the repudiation of most of Syriza's reform agenda.
Tsipras said that austerity and the Memorandum had been left behind. That is precisely the opposite of what has happened. The Thessaloniki programme, itself a carefully trimmed agenda shorn of the most radical of Syriza's goals, is what has been left behind.
More here.