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Change has to come from within. Germany worked because it was a democracy before the war; arguably having the constant threat of the Soviet Union rolling over Germany forced a certain amount of unity on them.

Japan and South Korea ended up as "one and a half party states": peaceful, not a lot of overt oppression, but not exactly diverse democracies either.

I could write an essay on how Iraq failed, but I'm sure others have done a better job out there.

State building in Germany was competently done and the Iraq venture started off by creating a power vacuum by firing basically most competent and entrenched people from their jobs, including the Army.

One difference between Iraq and the previous success of West Germany and Japan were that Axis countries occupied by the US were very aware that, if they didn't get on America's side, they were going to be gobbled up by Stalin. Their incentives were aligned to become pro-American in a very quick hurry!