The thing I take away from Tony Stark is that, yes, he's a fuck up who's constantly making mistakes, but he also realizes he's a fuck up who constantly makes mistakes, and so, when he realizes he fucked up and made a mistake, he finds a way to fix that mistake. Ultimately, he wants a peaceful world with the ability to defend itself from anyone or anything that might threaten that peace, and he sees people who have superpowers as a potential threat, so people need a way to keep track of them and know that they exist and what they're capable of, and they need to be held accountable if they use their powers in a way that causes problems, just like anyone else needs to be held accountable for such actions.
So, this is his solution to that. Is it perfect? No, of course not, nothing humans do ever is, but he's got to try something, and if it goes wrong, if it gets abused for someone's twisted ends, he'd be among the first to stand up and say "no, this is wrong" and try to fix his mistake. And that kind of proactive, long term approach is going to benefit humanity far more than Cap's "let's just brute force our way through whatever comes our way whenever it comes" approach. And the thing is, he's done a lot that worked and worked well, it's just that all we see, all that makes for good storytelling, is his fuck ups.
