When Barack Obama embarks on his upcoming trip to Iraq and Afghanistan he will do so as part of a congressional delegation. But top aides for John McCain are casting his voyage as little more than the Obama world tour.

Campaign aides, though seemingly at odds with McCain's personal view of the journey, described his trip to the Middle East and Europe as an unprecedented global rally that will have zero bearing on Obama's policies as a U.S. official.

"This is nothing more than a campaign stop and a photo op for Barack Obama to highlight his candidacy for president," McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds told FOXNews.com, arguing that Obama established his trip as political by declaring his foreign policy views before even leaving the country. Another aide called the trip a "rally overseas."

"Everything about this trip indicates ... it is about promoting his candidacy, and it has nothing to do with the security of the American people," Bounds said.

The Illinois senator scheduled the trip following criticisms from McCain and his campaign that he had yet to travel to the war zones as a presidential candidate.

Obama's trip is expected to be divided into two parts. He will travel to Iraq for the first time since January 2006 and to Afghanistan for the first time ever as part of an official delegation, paid for by taxpayers. He also will travel to other stops in Europe and the Middle East as a presidential candidate, paid for by campaign dollars.

Obama says he plans to meet with troops and commanders on the ground as part of a fact-finding mission that could influence his policies with regard to the War on Terror.

Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan said Thursday that the McCain campaign should "stop worrying" about Obama's travel plans and start correcting the damage from the "Bush-McCain" foreign policy.

"It's clear that the McCain campaign is getting nervous about being on the wrong side of the Iraq debate. First John McCain wanted Barack Obama to travel with him to Iraq and the campaign used the occasion to raise campaign cash. Now, his campaign is calling Senator Obama's trip a 'campaign rally overseas,'" he said in a written statement.

The McCain campaign used some of its strongest language to date Thursday to criticize Obama's visit.

"Let's drop the pretense that this is a fact-finding trip and call it what it is -- the first-of-its-kind campaign rally overseas," McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker told FOX News earlier.

McCain declined to label the trip an outright campaign stop when asked about his aide's comment Thursday, instead saying he'd "let other people judge."

"The fact is I am glad he is going to Iraq. I am glad he is going to Afghanistan. It's long, long overdue if you want to lead this nation and secure our national security," McCain told reporters.

He later said Iraq and Afghanistan "will not be a place for political rallies or politicization," but that his European stops could lead to such a scene.

But the presence of election-year American politics may be inescapable. It was that presence that apparently set off concern among German officials, who are reportedly uneasy about a possible Obama speech in front of the Brandenburg Gate, close to where the wall dividing Berlin once stood.

Robert Lichter, president of the Center for Media and Public Affairs, said Obama will need to avoid engaging in political bickering overseas -- but that he cannot and should not hide the obvious fact that he is more than a U.S. senator traveling abroad.

"It's impossible to separate those roles. I'm not even sure that it's wise to do so. Everything he does now is as a presidential candidate. Everything he does will be interpreted in terms of what kind of president he will be," Lichter said.

McCain attempted to leave presidential politics behind on recent trips out of the country, to Canada and then to Latin America. But while in Canada, he still took thinly veiled shots at Obama for his positions on free trade, and in Latin America criticized Obama as a flip-flopper -- both on the plane to Colombia and in an interview with FOX News in Mexico.

Lichter said that regardless of the potential pitfalls, Obama has an opportunity to comport himself as a statesman -- and a potential president.

"He will benefit from (his) popularity abroad, because the media images will show adoring crowds and other world figures saying nice things about him, and it will put him on the level of being a president," he said. "Part of becoming a viable presidential candidate is convincing people to imagine you as president."

That image will inevitably be fed by the entourage of media stars who are expected to be in tow once he reaches the Middle East. All three network anchors are reportedly accompanying Obama. The exact timetable of the trip hasn't been disclosed publicly.

But Republicans are continuing to cast him as just another politician.

The McCain campaign unveiled an eight-minute video Thursday called "The Obama Iraq Documentary: Whatever the Politics Demand."

The video contrasts past and present statements Obama has made about troop withdrawal, the troop surge and other Iraq debates.

"You're never wrong if you pretend you gave the right answer all along," the video says.

The McCain campaign also argues that by laying out his foreign policy platform before he travels to Iraq, Obama is proving that he will ignore the advice of military commanders and that his Iraq strategy is "politically motivated."

Obama has in recent days downplayed the role of Iraq in the War on Terror, stressing the need to track down terrorists in Afghanistan and prevent nuclear material from falling into the hands of nations like Iran.

He is standing by his plan to remove U.S. troops from Iraq within 16 months of taking office, despite saying recently that he may "refine" his policies after going to Iraq.

"This war distracts us from every threat that we face and so many opportunities we could seize," Obama said Tuesday.

The Democratic National Committee responded to the latest video on Obama and Iraq by releasing its own videos accusing McCain of echoing President Bush's policies in the Middle East.

The McCain campaign is trying to "distract attention from John McCain's real record on Iraq--a record of being inconsistent and being wrong, just like President Bush," the DNC said in a statement.

FOX News' Bonney Kapp and Mosheh Oinounou contributed to this report.