“Putin, Ahmadinejad, bin Laden, etc. would strongly prefer an Obama presidency to a McCain one?”

They’d prefer McCain in my view. They probably would much prefer another 4 years of Bush, of course, as he does tend to alienate the world, turn the world against the US, and so make their own prospecting for allies more potentially fruitful.

But they know Obama will be more likely to build American alliances successfully, cutting off their own efforts at the same.

If I was any one of them, I would be loudly endorsing Obama, knowing that the stupid section of the American electorate would react by voting against my stated choice (I would assume, of course, that I could not influence the smart voters, who would make their own decision and not care one way or the other which choice I endorsed).