"It was about helping Obama get reelected. So far though, al-Qaeda seems to have come out way ahead in the deal."
This suggests that Obama and AQ are on opposite sides. It is more likely that both Obama and AQ understood that helping AQ would cost Obama politically, and the plan was to throw Osama under the bus to recover. The American people could be counted on to forget (if they even noticed) the help given to AQ in light of the "victory" over OBL. The cooperation of AQ would go a long way toward explaining why it was suddenly possible to find OBL. The 8 month delay in launching the assassination was due to trying to place it as close as possible to the 2012 elections; the limiting factor would have been an increasing likelihood of discovery of the monitoring.
The cooperation of AQ would go a long way toward explaining why it was suddenly possible to find OBL. See the other thread (still active) about the British (of course) press story speculating that Ayman al-Zawahiri (Abu Ayman) did a deal with Obama via the Muslim Brotherhood back-channel Obama's been using (Code Pink people and Bill Ayers have been over to Egypt during the "relief flotilla" affair).
Obama gets OBL, Abu Ayman gets Egypt and the leadership of AQ, and when the Saudis are overthrown, he gets to become Protector of the Shrine Cities. What could be more mutually beneficial? Chicago politics, in the international arena.