WASHINGTON – As the political battle intensifies over President Bush’s efforts to spread democracy to Iraq and the Middle East, an influential human rights organization, Freedom House, has found that the past year brought significant improvements in personal and political rights across the region.

Reports of increased freedom emerged from Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the Palestinian territories, and observers attributed the results to the Bush administration’s support of fledgling democracies worldwide.

The findings were released yesterday as part of Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 2006 report, a global survey of political rights and civil liberties published annually by the organization since 1972. The report evaluates countries based largely on criteria drawn from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and rates countries under the categories “political rights” and “civil liberties” on a scale of 1 to 7, with 1 indicating the greatest level of freedom.

This year’s Freedom in the World based its evaluations on events that took place between December 1, 2004, and November 30. During that time, according to the study, the number of electoral democracies increased from 119 to 122, the most in the report’s 33-year history.

In the Middle East, the sweep of successful democratic elections was the decisive factor in improving the region’s ratings, Freedom House’s research director and a co-editor of Freedom in the World, Arch Puddington, said yesterday.

The most significant change, Mr. Puddington said, took place in Lebanon. Freedom House uses countries’ numerical ratings to divide nations into three categories: “free,” “partly free,” and “not free.” This year, Lebanon transitioned from “not free” to “partly free,” largely owing to its “Cedar Revolution” in February and March, Mr. Puddington said.

After a February bombing killed a former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri, the country’s citizens took to the streets by the hundreds of thousands to demand that the Syrian government end its presence there.

From the demonstrations, “you went from there to the withdrawal of the Syrian occupation troops, which then led to the best elections you’ve had in Lebanon in years, and really an improvement almost across the board in civil liberties,” Mr. Puddington said. “So basically that explains why Lebanon improved as it did. “The country, which was ranked at 6,5 last year for political rights and civil liberties, achieved a 5,4 ranking this year, moving it into the “partly free” category.

Iraq’s elections, too, led to noticeable improvements in its freedom ranking. Last year, the country was given a 7,5 rating. This year, while still considered “not free,” Iraq attained a 6,5 rating, in large part because of successful elections in January and the constitutional referendum in October. Last week’s parliamentary elections, in which about 70% of the Iraqi electorate participated, occurred after the survey’s deadline.

Mr. Puddington said Iraq’s freedom score would have increased even more if not for the terrorist violence there, which, the analyst said, “has an effect on journalism, has an effect on freedom of religion … has an effect on the rights of NGOs and independent organizations to do their thing.”

Elections this year in Egypt and the Palestinian territories, too, yielded improved ratings. “Despite the fact that, in the Egyptian elections, some of them were rigged, and some of them were violent, nonetheless, these are the best elections we’ve had in that country possibly ever,” Mr. Puddington said.

Kuwait’s rating improved because of its decision to grant suffrage to women, and Saudi Arabia spurred a modest uptick by opening its press to the influence of outside satellite television.

Post-Taliban Afghanistan, which had a 5,6 rating and a “not free” label last year, became “partly free” this year, with a 5,5 rating.

The findings of increased freedom in the Middle East came as President Bush has become more aggressive in defending his decision to go to war in Iraq. This week he gave a major speech and press conference refuting criticism that America’s actions have harmed the region, framing the war as part of a larger program for spreading freedom to oppressed peoples in the Middle East and other tyrannical regimes around the globe.

That policy, Mr. Puddington said, was partly responsible for the surge of democratic behavior in the Middle East. “People in this part of the world want democracy. And whether they appreciate American policies or not, American policies have not set democracy back – and I think the evidence suggests that they have been one of many factors that have pushed it forward.”

The president of the Reform Party of Syria, Farid Ghadry, too, linked the surging tide of freedom in the Middle East to Mr. Bush’s policies and public support for international democracy.

“He’s the driving force behind the freedom … and he has the dictatorships running for cover,” Mr. Ghadry said.

The opposition leader also discounted naysayers dismissive of the president’s accomplishments. “We’ve even heard people saying that people in the Middle East don’t understand democracy, they don’t need it, they don’t deserve it,” Mr. Ghadry said. “But it’s absolutely not true. … The movement is too fast, the movement is too strong. The results are there for people to see and hear.”

An Iraqi dissident and a leader of Iraq’s Assyrian Christian community, Eden Naby, also praised American efforts in Iraq, but cautioned that the newfound freedom and democracy were fragile, requiring further nurturing and patience.

“I think that in terms of general freedom, the Middle East is at a tipping point,” Ms. Naby said. “We’re having a real struggle between improvement and going backwards,” she said, pointing to increasing violence against Iraqi Christians.

Still, Ms. Naby said, “If the Iraqi vote becomes repeated anywhere else, say in Jordan, then I think it’s an example of how people cannot be pushed back into their tents – that this democracy notion … is going to have an effect that can’t be turned back so easily.”

In addition to the Middle East, “Freedom in the World” also registered marked improvements in Ukraine and Indonesia, owing to Ukraine’s “Orange Revolution” and successful democratic elections in both countries. Countries that witnessed declining levels of freedom were the Philippines and President Chavez’s Venezuela, which, Mr. Puddington said, may slip from “partly free” to “not free” in next year’s rankings. Cuba, North Korea, and Syria remained among the countries perennially identified by Freedom House as “the worst of the worst,” or states with a 7,7 rating for political and civic freedoms.