Tsipras declares victory after defeat

If you can't win a battle, you can always pretend.

"Yesterday we took a decisive step, leaving austerity, the bailouts and the troika behind," Tsipras said in a televised statement to the Greek nation. "We won a battle, not the war. The difficulties, the real difficulties ... are ahead of us."

The only victory Tsipras can claim is semantics. The troika in all the latest documents is now referred to as "the three institutions."

The troika/Three Institutions gave up absolutely nothing in negotiations and Tsipras recommitted to the same amount of austerity as the government he replaced. On Monday Greece will have an opportunity to present some different steps but all within the same budgetary structure.

Just to emphasize the point (and twist the knife), other leaders have been rubbing it in.

"Their political problem is that this a reversal of their election position. There is absolutely nothing on the table that could be considered a concession," Irish finance minister Michael Noonan said.

In Greece's defense, they had no leverage. The ECB could cut off the ELA and Greece's banking system would be bankrupt overnight.

"We went through two months of agony, emptied the banks, to realise we are still a debt colony," 54-year-old electrician Dimitris Kanakis told Reuters. "The paymasters call the shots."