Seumas Milne — Syriza can’t just cave in. Europe’s elites want regime change in Greece

Greece’s confrontation with the euro overlords will shape resistance to austerity – and the future of the whole European Union

It’s now clear that Germany and Europe’s powers that be don’t just want the Greek government to bend the knee. They want regime change. Not by military force, of course – this operation is being directed from Berlin and Brussels, rather than Washington. But that the German chancellor Angela Merkel and the troika of Greece’s European and International Monetary Fund creditors are out to remove the elected government in Athens now seems beyond serious doubt. Everything they have done in recent weeks in relation to the leftist Syriza administraton, elected to turn the tide of austerity, appears designed to divide or discredit Alexis Tsipras’s government. They were at it again today, when Tsipras offered what looked like almost complete acceptance of the austerity package he had called a referendum on this Sunday. There could be no talks, Merkel responded, until the ballot had taken place. There’s no suggestion of genuine compromise. The aim is apparently to humiliate Tsipras and his government in preparation for its early replacement with a more pliable administration....

Class warfare.

Already the class nature of the divide between the wealthier yes and more working-class no camps is stark.