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«Il y songeait depuis toujours. Nicolas Sarkozy s'est préparé à accéder à la présidence de la République française en vrai professionnel, après son échec aux élections européennes de 1999. Raphaelle Bacqué et Philippe Ridet, Le Monde Mardi 8 mai 2007 Il n'est pas arrivé en novice. Il y a songé depuis toujours, et sérieusement depuis au moins... vingt-cinq ans. «On n'arrive pas là par hasard», a-t-il coutume de dire. Il y a donc réfléchi chaque matin sans faiblir. Iznogoud parfait dans les caricatures, mais au fond tellement français dans son approche du pouvoir. On pourrait entamer le récit de sa légende politique à presque chaque étape de sa vie. A la blessure originelle d'un garçon délaissé par son père. A sa rencontre avec Jacques Chirac. A sa prise de la mairie de Neuilly. A ses premiers ministères. Tout fait ventre, dans une course pareille. Rien n'est anodin. Quand il y repense lui-même, il souligne seulement: «Ce qui paie, c'est la ténacité. Etre prêt à tenir de longs mois, et même de longues années.» De la détermination, Nicolas Sarkozy en avait donc depuis longtemps. Mais il a commencé à mettre en place sa stratégie, en professionnel, lors du premier échec qui l'a vraiment touché, en 1999, lors des élections européennes. Ce jour-là fut sa Berezina. Et le moment, aussi, où il passa un pacte avec lui-même: «Je ne retournerai pas au désert...»» [...] «Il choisit cependant l'intérieur. De là, il pourra avoir la main sur les services de renseignement, les préfets, l'organisation des élections. Et il pourra toujours faire de son revers un succès tactique : "Les Français ont compris que ce n'est pas le gouvernement qui crée les emplois. En revanche, c'est le gouvernement qui fait..." »...
Source: http://www.letemps.ch | Source Status Category: Analyse Stratégique

«Terry Semel was pissed. The Yahoo CEO had offered to buy Google for roughly $3 billion, but the young Internet search firm wasn't interested. Once upon a time, Google's founders had come to Yahoo for an infusion of cash; now they were turning up their noses at what Semel believed was a perfectly reasonable offer. Worse, Semel's lieutenants were telling him that, in fact, Google was probably worth at least $5 billion. This was way back in the summer of 2002, two years before Google went public. An age before Google's stock soared above $500 a share, giving the company a market value of $147 billion -- right behind Chevron and just ahead of Intel. As Semel and his top staff sat around the table in a corporate conference room named after a Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavor (Phish Food), $5 billion sounded unacceptably high. Google's revenue stood at a measly $240 million a year. Yahoo's was about $837 million. And yet, with Yahoo's stock price still hovering at a bubble-busted $7! a share, a $5 billion purchase price would essentially mean that Yahoo would have to spend its entire market value to swing the deal. It would be a merger of equals, not a purchase. Terry Semel -- a legendary Hollywood dealmaker, a guy who didn't even use email -- had not come to Silicon Valley to meekly merge with the geeky boys of Google.»...
Source: http://www.wired.com | Source Status

«From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel. One observation of the Iraq Study Group, in its report that was released this week, was this. There must be a renewed and sustained commitment to a comprehensive Arab/Israeli peace on all fronts. Just as the first Gulf War was followed by a big Middle East peace conference, the one in Madrid in 1991, there should be a similar conference. Richard Haas, who is president of the Council on Foreign Relations, was on the National Security Council staff handling the Middle East back in those days. And Richard Hass, I'd like to talk with you today about the prospects for diplomacy and also the relationship between the Arab/Israeli conflict and Iraq. Do you accept the reasoning that without an Israeli/Arab peace or some progress toward one, you can't get a stable result in Iraq? Mr. RICHARD HAAS (Council on Foreign Relations): The short answer, Robert, is no. Let's put it this way. When these people in Iraq get up ever! y morning and pick up their guns, the reasons that Shia are killing Sunnis and Sunnis are killing Shia is not in order to promote some Palestinian state or some vision of Jerusalem or anything else.» [...] «SIEGEL: I've heard some people react to the proposal of getting an Arab/Israeli peace done as saying one could cut the Gordian Knot in Baghdad if only you could solve the four dimensional Rubik's Cube first here over here in the West Bank, Southern Lebanon, and the Golan Heights. It's not very encouraging to say first let's solve the 50-year-old, 60-year-old conflict between Israel and its neighbors. Then we can figure out things in Iraq. Mr. HAAS: Only in the Middle East would one apply such logic to think that by trying to solve the entire regional problem you would be able to improve the situation in Iraq. Again, I just don't think one, it's possible, but two, it's not going to work that way. The dynamics that are fueling the internecine conflict inside Iraq would simply not go away or be materially affected by progress on the Arab/Israeli dispute, or in particular, the Israeli/Palestinian dispute. »...
Source: http://www.npr.org | Source Status