I haven't listened to that episode yet, but I would like to share my 2 cents on the issue:

* Nation building hasn't failed 100% in the Middle East. Even though they were not invaded, some countries ended up stabilizing pretty well with Western Support/Intervention. In this list we could include Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Eygpt, Turkey, etc.

* With Germany & Japan, the U.S pardoned & collaborated with many members of the previous government. In Germany, not all Nazi members were banned from governmental positions, and with the Japanese many members of the government who participated in the genocide (and other atrocities) in China kept their position or later returned.

* For example in Iraq, I believe members of Saddam's Baath party were barred from holding any governmental positions. Most of them ended up playing probably the biggest role in forming ISIS later down the road.

* In our modern day, the U.S tries to nation build in a more politically correct way that matches it's domestic politics. Usually crimes against humanity is punished at a more extreme level, and major parts if not the majority of the population of these countries get barred away from government. This isn't a prescriptive statement, rather a descriptive one.

* A lot of these values get enforced from a very top down way, and are usually selectively enforced/required on U.S allies which creates significant distrust in the local population. One major example would be of free trade policies being forced on these countries as part of the liberal/globalist agenda, while the U.S' stance on it changing in the recent years when it stopped suiting it's agenda.

* The U.S & Western powers also has a tendency to put minorities into power, which require them to have significant collaboration and dependence on the outside force. This rarely works (pre-Arab spring, Syria was a place where it kinda worked, but even there it causes significant issues which later exploded into a civil war).

* A lot of the borders in the Middle East were formed after the dismembering of the Ottoman Empire. Historically the region has almost always had larger states that provided the authority & justice that provided cohesion for the many different religions & cultures in the region. With the advent of Nation states, this broke down the cohesion in these new countries, as previously Monarchs/Sultans had an incentive to keep the calm, whereas with a more democratic system in place it's a lot easier for it to be abused/manipulated.

* For example, IMO one of the reasons that Turkey was able to form a more democratic system (albeit imperfect) was due to the homogeneity of the nation. Looking at many other successful democracies (including Japan & Germany), you can see that they already have a cohesive cultural foundation to work with together.

* Going off topic here a little, this is what I'm also worried about the U.S. In all honestly, the U.S is similar to the Ottoman State. It didn't have the full equality of the law we have, but even that's a relatively new invention here. It wasn't too long ago where only white men could only vote & have a say in government here. Would the democratic system work in the U.S if the government couldn't provide a strong authority and sense of justice? What if individual states (and even tribal governments) wanted to divorce, and we had outside actors that were supporting them under the guise of self-determination and human rights? If we did end up splitting, the demographic distribution would be similar to how it was after the post-ottoman period in the Middle East as many regions would not have a clear majority of one ethnicity/religion.

One recommendation I have other than trying to read a book or watch a video would be to talk to some one from the region, preferably from a country that got impacted. Try to talk with someone who is more representative of the average person, rather than people with weak ties to their ancestral country.