The arrival of a team of American experts from the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to investigate last month’s wildfire, while unobjectionable in itself, is an illustration of why the Christodoulides government comes in for so much criticism – even more than it deserves, sometimes.

Bringing in foreign experts to assist after a natural disaster is not unheard-of. In this case, however, local non-experts had already pointed out many errors in the official response.

The fire wasn’t flagged for half an hour after it had broken out, and the first helicopters didn’t arrive for 50 minutes after that. The coordinator of firefighting operations was in Australia. An offer of help – including a helicopter – from the north had been rebuffed. And so on.

In this context, the investigators seemed like a distraction at best. Nor did the president help with his fawning statement that “we’re always very glad to work with the US government” – a good example of his knack for the cringe-inducing platitude. The point about the experts, after all, is their scientific expertise. The fact that they work for the US (or any) government is irrelevant.

And what will they say? We won’t know till the experts produce their report next month. A story published in the Cyprus Times, however – based on last Monday’s meeting between the Americans and Christodoulides – is a bit of a red flag.

“The most important conclusion reached by the team,” wrote the paper, “was that, in this case, it was impossible for the blaze to have been controlled in time… The characteristics of this particular fire made it almost unstoppable.” That’s a conclusion that sounds suspiciously like a whitewash.

We shouldn’t prejudge, of course – and indeed, it’s unlikely that the experts will simply conclude it was nobody’s fault and the whole thing was an act of God. Their report will surely include some measure of blame, and recommendations for the future which everyone will agree are good recommendations.

Then again, it’s also unlikely that the ‘US government’, to whom Christodoulides has become a faithful ally, will hang him out to dry. People aren’t stupid: they can see the quid pro quo going on here.

At the very least, the experts’ report will be used as a corrective to more vicious criticism from local sources – which brings up another exasperating trait of this government, the penchant for appealing to authority. The mere fact that foreign experts have been brought in will surely be used (it’s already being used) as a counter to local critics, as if to say ‘Who are you to argue with the experts?’.

Christodoulides has form when it comes to this kind of servile mentality. One recalls his infamous statement a couple of months ago when he told reporters he was “very proud of the Republic of Cyprus”, not because of anything we’d done but because the German foreign minister was here on a stopover at the same time as a state visit by the Indian prime minister.

Even worse, this was a throwaway remark, so it may actually truly represent how he feels – namely, that our worth as a country depends on how much attention we get from bigger, more powerful countries.

What to do when a terrible wildfire kills two people and causes major destruction? The answer – while of course dodging personal responsibility, and making sure nobody resigns – is to bring in American experts, who come with the imprimatur of the US government and have handled “major fires in California and Hawaii”, as we were told. Needless to say, no-one was using those to diminish our own ‘minor’ fire in little Cyprus – at least not out loud. But that was the implication.

And of course it’s all about the optics – which is probably the biggest reason why this government gets so much stick, even when it does things right (which it does, at least some of the time).

Rather than dwell on why helicopters were late, or why the fire coordinator was in Australia, it’s much better theatre to be sat around a table convening with foreign experts, discussing scientific evidence and taking important decisions.

The trouble, again, is that people aren’t stupid. They can see when a politician is more concerned with their own image than solving the actual problem.

Recall another infamous Christodoulides moment, his iconic photo just after the fire, looking solemn and flanked by all the mukhtars of the region. It’s a great photo – but it’s iconic for all the wrong reasons.

Everyone thought he looked good, but also wondered how much time had been wasted getting everyone to pose like that – and wondered how much empathy this man truly felt for the fire victims, when at least part of his mind was focused on creating the perfect photo op. 

This government is obsessed with image and spin. The US experts – for all their undoubted expertise – are more of the same.