I think it is different. In south American there was usually enough chaos for the US to march in an pretend they were restoring order. It would be more difficult to to so in countries with long solid democratic traditions and which are known to be very stable.

The US always relied on finding some extremists or sympathetic party which they could manipulate to their ends.

You can't topple people in a vacuum. In Iran they could rely on existing support for the Shah of Iran. In Chile they could rely on right wing military people like Pinochet.

There has to be some sort of chaos to exploit.

Or perhaps there are way in which the US could manufacture a crisis, but I think US governments today as simply nicer than in the past.

> I think it is different. In south American there was usually enough chaos for the US to march in an pretend they were restoring order.

Yeah, I used to think like you. Until that one time when the USA landed the plane of the president of Bolivia because they thought Snowden was aboard. That's not the USA doing its shit in a far away place, to "bad guys" in south america or iran. I know hijacking a plane isn't toppling a government, but do you see what I mean? They certainly have the power, it's just a question of are they brazen enough? And to me this shows that they are.

> I think US governments today as simply nicer than in the past.

I see no evidence of that. Look at what's happening in Syria.