Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki says a Barack Obama presidency could be just peachy so far as he's concerned. The Iraqi pol's controversial weekend endorsement of Obama's troop withdrawal plan gives a timely boost to the Democratic nominee who just arrived in Iraq this morning, and makes us wonder about the electoral preferences of some of the other clowns who've made it onto Obama's world tour itinerary. Since most of them will be far more reticent about their private views, we'll just go ahead and engage in some wild speculation about who they're pulling for in November.

Afghanistan: McCain.
As we reported earlier, President Hamid Karzai has privately expressed serious reservations about Obama's commitment to fighting the Taliban. (Possibly, he worries that Obama will figure out that Afghanistan is a place where superpowers go to die.) Also, he couldn't have appreciated the Democratic nominee criticizing him for not coming "out of the bunker" since he's the one who's survived at least four assassination attempts and, you know, lives in Afghanistan instead of some upscale Chicago neighborhood.

Palestinian Authority: No longer gives a shit.
Obama was the easy favorite with the Palestinian crowd until he asserted that the city of Jerusalem should remain wholly under Israeli control, which is something akin to suggesting that the World Trade Center site be converted into an Al Qaeda training camp. Obama later "clarified" his remarks, but a new report suggests that "Palestinians seem to have no real high hopes for any major changes in U.S. Middle East policy which they believe strongly favors Israel anyway."

Israel: McCain
Despite Obama's best efforts to suck up to the pro-Israeli crowd, there remains deep skepticism in Israel about his position on Iran and his commitment, more generally, to putting their security interests ahead of his own country's; he trails McCain in Israeli polls by as many as 20 points.

Jordan: Obama
A poll showed Jordan as one of the few countries where people had more confidence in McCain than Obama. But that was before a nasty rumor spread about by a McCain advisor claiming that his boss would declare Jordan a Palestinian state. (This is a lot like saying, hey, we could totally reduce the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. if we just gave California to Mexico.) The McCain aide vehemently denied ever making such remarks, but only after the rumor "enraged almost every actor in Jordanian politics." We think this, plus the "Hussein" middle name, give Obama the edge with Jordanian decision-makers.
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The EU: McCain
Crowds for Obama during his stops in Germany, France and England could be positively Hasselhoffian. But while he may have a massive edge among the European masses, Obama is far from a runaway favorite in the hearts of government officials who quietly nurse concerns about how Obama's inexperience and policies in several key areas could affect them. On Iran, Obama appears to be squishier than the hard-charging EU these days. On Afghanistan, he will likely be asking European countries to contribute more troops to NATO forces there. And on trade, he favors protectionist policies which often complicate the exchange of goods. These issues, coupled with the comfort factor of dealing with an old white guy, could make McCain a private favorite.