What I was trying to say is that most politicians at the time (this applies to the US as well, I guess) were willing do to almost anything to stop the collapse,

What I was trying to say is that most politicians at the time (this applies to the US as well, I guess) were willing do to almost anything to stop the collapse, even if that meant hurting the Euro in the long term. The (somewhat hypothetical) alternative could have been a lot worse.