Reuters reports that Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) has announced that it will add activist investor, Carl Icahn, who owns 5% of Yahoo stock, to its board. Why?

Yahoo's board picked what it thought was the lesser of two evils. It could have spent time on a proxy contest in which Icahn's slate of directors would replace the current board at the August 1 shareholders meeting, or it could just expand the board from nine to 11, taking on Icahn and two others from his slate, since only 8 of Yahoo's current directors are standing for reelection.

This reminds me of a line from The Godfather: "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer." I don't know the way the Yahoo board makes decisions but if Icahn can't persuade at least three other of its current board members to go along with him -- to get a 6-5 majority -- he is likely not to have much of an impact on Yahoo's fate.

And so the drama continues. Meanwhile, investors have traded Yahoo down 1.7% in premarket.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in Yahoo securities.