It is unusual for a secret service to advertise for help, and rarer still for a secretary of state to do the advertising. Yet that, according to Al Jazeera's report, is what Marco Rubio has done: he has urged Cubans to work covertly with the Central Intelligence Agency to bring down their own government. The appeal turns a traditionally hidden practice into a public message, and that choice may matter as much as the content. The logic is not difficult to reconstruct.

Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants and a long-standing critic of Havana, has built his career on the argument that pressure, not engagement, will change the island. Cuba's economy has struggled for years with shortages, blackouts and emigration, and Washington's supporters of a hard line believe that discontent could be channelled into political change. An open invitation, in this view, signals resolve and gives wavering insiders a reason to act. The risks are considerable, however.

Cuban authorities have long portrayed domestic dissent as foreign-directed, and a public American call to collaborate hands them a ready-made justification for arrests and surveillance. Anyone approached by an intelligence service is also exposed to prosecution under Cuban law, while carrying none of the protections that Washington enjoys. History offers a sobering reference point: the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, planned by the CIA, collapsed in three days and strengthened Fidel Castro's hold on power. Critics in Latin America, Africa and Europe, where memories of Cold War-era interventions remain vivid, will likely read the statement as a return to that era.