Barack Obama may depart this summer from his road-warrior tour of election-battleground states to take a trip around the world, one intended to shore up his credentials on foreign policy.

With a foreign trip under discussion in the Obama camp, any itinerary almost certainly would include a stop in Iraq. That would be his first trip to the war zone since early 2006. It would be designed to answer Republican presidential candidate John McCain's criticism that antiwar Obama can't talk credibly about withdrawing U.S. forces since he hasn't been on the ground there since the 2007 troop buildup brought some military success.

While he's at it, Obama may extend his journey to other parts of the globe, especially Western Europe, where his racial mix, youth, optimism and themes of anti-Bush, multilateral diplomacy have generated impassioned interest in his candidacy.

Obama advisers are eager to find a way to harness his popularity overseas to boost his appeal to undecided voters back home, and to show that the 46-year-old freshman senator from Illinois can compete with McCain on foreign policy. While the Arizona senator is a veteran of war and Washington -- and 25 years Obama's senior -- his support for the Iraq war puts him on the losing side of public opinion.

The benefit of a foreign trip to several countries, including Iraq, would be that it would allow the Obama campaign to get the candidate to Iraq without looking as though the campaign was goaded into it by Sen. John McCain and other Republicans.