Japan did have an “established” culture (so does most of the Middle East, just not one you like), but that culture was hardly the liberal western culture people think of when they discuss even Nazi Germany. Japan was a quasi-theocracy, part-autocracy governed by the military through proxies; it had a feudal agricultural system; the emperor was believed to be a god and people could not even look him in they eye; and their “modern” industry was completely socialized. There was not a great deal of difference between Japan and Iran, except Iran doesn’t have any one person who can dictate to it in terms of religion the way Hirohito did.
“Japan did have an “established” culture (so does most of the Middle East, just not one you like)”
It’s not a matter of like or dislike. Japan had an established culture and one that fostered a very productive and educated population. They made complex things like aircraft carriers, aircraft, and had an advanced technological base, even before world war II. No American could like pre-war Japanese brutality and atrocities.
Unfortunately in the Mid-East there are no analogous cultural elements that result in a productive class, like in Germany and Japan. Iran is the closest to that, that’s why they are the ones building nukes - nobody else in the region could manage it on their own, and even Iran needed North Korea to help build their nukes.
A productive dominant culture is entirely absent in Afghanistan, and it is mostly absent in Iraq. There is no way democracy could succeed there, because the productive class was not large enough to ensure wide-spread prosperity.
If you can’t tell the difference between Japan/Germany and Iran, that is definitely a problem for you.