As we predicted last week when Wikileaks released an IMF transcript which suggested turbulent times may be ahead for Greece, Reuters today writes that “the leaking of a conference call of International Monetary Fund officials on Greece’s latest bailout review has further undermined mutual trust in fraught debt talks, embarrassed the European Commission and infuriated the IMF and Germany.”

At stake are many things, not the least of which is the IMF’s reputation as a stern enforcer of financial rescue programmes meant to make indebted states viable and the European Union’s determination to hold the euro zone together and avert another damaging Greek crisis.

And as Reuters adds, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras “exploited the leak at home to demonize the IMF, rally his left-wing Syriza party ahead of more painful sacrifices to secure the next slice of European loans, and try to put his conservative opponents in a corner.”

However, his efforts to drive a wedge between the EU institutions and the IMF, and isolate IMF Europe director Paul Thomsen, a veteran of six years of acrimonious negotiations with Athens, fell flat. “Each time Tsipras is going to have to compromise, he needs to create an external enemy,” said George Pagoulatos, professor of European politics and economy at Athens University. “It’s part of his old populist playbook. It’s smart domestic politics even if it is dumb diplomacy.”

Diplomatic pandering aside, Tsipras rebuke undercut months of patient efforts by Tsipras himself and Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos to rebuild lenders’ trust following last summer’s turbulent events which culminated with a bank run, capital controls and a banking system that relies on the ECB for its daily existence.

As Reuters today writes t, it also shone a light on a complex, three-dimensional chess game the IMF is playing to try to make Greece accept painful reforms of pensions, taxation and bad loans while pressuring Germany and its allies to grant Athens substantial debt relief.