KSA has given up on trying to defeat the Houthis, and now wants to buy them with a promise of revenue sharing from the oil fields that were recently captured by UAE-backed STC.

KSA hopes they can reduce the frequency of attacks against their oil infrastructure and economic diversification mega-projects. They’re betting that the cost of the Houthi attacks that will still be launched against them, plus the cost of the bribes aimed at reducing the frequency of those attacks, will still be less expensive than a full ground invasion of Yemen.

Furthermore, KSA is racing against the global trend away from burning oil for energy. They need to diversify their economy while oil is still valuable, and a ground war would halt that progress because investors won’t want to put their eggs into an exploding basket.

So KSA is willing to act against members of their own anti-Houthi alliance in order to prevent a UAE-sponsored break-away state from metastasizing on their border - a break-away state that would control the oil revenue that KSA hoped would buy them a temporary reprieve during this fragile economic moment.