The Greek crisis began five years ago, and the situation has been at or beyond Great Depression level for much of that time. Joe Stiglitz said yesterday that he "can think of no depression, ever, that has been so deliberate and had such catastrophic consequences: Greece’s rate of youth unemployment, for example, now exceeds 60%."

Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis is the smartest and most principled person I can think of to have held such a position in any country, at least in my lifetime. However (or perhaps because of this), mainstream press coverage of his performance has with rare exception ranged from misinformation to slander—at times approaching overt racism. Here's his perspective on the breakdown of negotiations between Greece and the 'troika' of the European Central Bank, the European Commission, and the IMF:

Ministers turned down the Greek government’s request that the Greek people should be granted a single week during which to deliver a Yes or No answer to the institutions’ proposals – proposals crucial for Greece’s future in the Eurozone. The very idea that a government would consult its people on a problematic proposal put to it by the institutions was treated with incomprehension and often with disdain bordering on contempt. I was even asked: “How do you expect common people to understand such complex issues?”. Indeed, democracy did not have a good day in yesterday’s Eurogroup meeting!

Despite concessions from Syriza so significant that they prompted widespread public protest in Greece, the troika—in what Paul Krugman dubbed "an act of monstrous folly"—refused to budge an inch from the disastrous policies of the last five years. If Greece was a corporation, its debt would have been restructured to something that can be realistically repaid long ago. It takes two parties to create a bad debt, and in this case it was the previous Greek government(s), corruptly operating on behalf of oligarchs, and the troika. The Greek people are not to blame, but are currently taking the punishment. By refusing to make concessions that would, among other things, recognise its own culpability, "The troika clearly did a reverse Corleone — they made Tsipras an offer he can’t accept, and presumably did this knowingly. So the ultimatum was, in effect, a move to replace the Greek government. And even if you don’t like Syriza, that has to be disturbing for anyone who believes in European ideals." (Krugman again)

Francesco Saraceno likewise notes that:

Austerity and structural reforms need to be the only way to go. Otherwise people could start asking questions; a risk you don’t want to run a few months before Spanish elections. Syriza needed to be made an example. You cannot  survive in Europe, if you don’t embrace the Brussels-Berlin Consensus. Tsipras, like [former Prime Minister] Papandreou, was left with the only option too ask for the Greek people’s opinion, because there has been no negotiation, just a huge smoke screen. Those of us who were discussing pros and cons of the different options on the table, well, we were wasting our time.

Forced to choose between certain continuing disaster, and an uncertain future that would at least restore some degree of democracy to Greece, there seems to be only one responsible option.