Recent developments between Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Houthis have revived a question that had long seemed settled, with commentators asking whether Riyadh has relied too heavily on Yemen’s internationally recognized government, the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), as its primary political partner against the Houthis.
The debate gained urgency after a fragile period of relative calm collapsed. Since the U.N.-brokered truce between the internationally recognized government and the Houthis took effect in April 2022, the Saudi-Houthi front had remained largely dormant, with both sides avoiding direct confrontation despite the absence of a formal peace agreement. Although the U.N.-brokered truce had formally expired, a de facto truce largely held until July 13, 2026, when the PLC struck the runway at Sanaa International Airport to prevent an Iranian aircraft from landing. The aircraft was carrying a Houthi delegation returning from Tehran after attending the funeral of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
The Houthis condemned the strike as an act of aggression and declared that “the blockade would be met with a blockade.” They then resumed missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia, including strikes targeting Abha Airport, announced a maritime blockade on Saudi-linked shipping in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait and, on July 23, attacked the Saudi oil tankers Encelia and Layla. What had been a largely dormant front since 2022 had once again become an active theater of confrontation.
Against this backdrop, an issue that had long been politically taboo was reopened: After more than a decade of war, does continued reliance on the PLC still serve Saudi interests, or is it time to recalibrate the kingdom’s local alliances by granting the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) a larger role?
Saudi Arabia began its large-scale military intervention in Yemen in March 2015, when it launched Operation Decisive Storm at the formal request of President Abed Rabbu Mansour Hadi (whose rule preceded that of the PLC) following the Houthi takeover of Sanaa. The coalition’s stated objective was to restore Yemen’s internationally recognized government and reverse the Houthi coup.
The STC, by contrast, was established in 2017 with Emirati backing and has since emerged as the principal political and military force advocating the restoration of an independent South Yemen. As its influence expanded on the ground, some Gulf commentators began arguing that Saudi Arabia should rely less on the internationally recognized government and work more closely with the STC, particularly in southern Yemen and around the Bab al-Mandab.
Supporters of this reasoning argue that the central problem lies not in the coalition’s objectives, but in the instruments used to achieve them. In their view, more than a decade of political, military and financial backing has failed to enable Yemen’s internationally recognized government to establish effective authority on the ground. By contrast, the STC has consolidated its influence across much of southern Yemen, emerging as one of the country’s most organized and capable local actors.
While such questions are rarely voiced within official Saudi or mainstream public circles, they have circulated since 2019, when they were first raised by the Kuwaiti commentator Ali al-Shelaimi. At the time, he wrote: “To the Arab coalition in Yemen: Sanaa will never be liberated by these cowards. They have stolen your money, squandered humanitarian aid under the banner of reform, divided Yemen’s oil revenues among themselves, placed their relatives on the government payroll and appointed their associates to overseas offices. Cut off their salaries, and use those funds for the benefit of your own people.”
The same argument was later adopted by several Saudi dissidents abroad, including Omar Alzahrani, a critic of Saudi Arabia’s strategy in Yemen since the beginning of the intervention. Alzahrani recently argued that southern Yemen had evolved from an area “secured by” Saudi military intervention into a political, economic and security “liability.” He pointed to recurring protests, clashes between demonstrators and security forces, deteriorating public services and chronic delays in salary payments as evidence that the internationally recognized government had failed to establish effective governance.
Today, the debate is no longer confined to Saudi dissidents or Emirati commentators — whose support for the STC is unsurprising — but has also gained traction among a broader group of Gulf analysts, including figures generally regarded as supportive of Saudi Arabia. For instance, Kuwaiti Anwar al-Rasheed argued that it is time to “reconsider policies that have produced no meaningful results,” maintaining that continued reliance on the internationally recognized government has failed to achieve the outcomes that Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states originally sought. In his view, “solving Yemen’s crisis begins with solving the South’s crisis,” describing southern Yemen as the Gulf’s strategic depth. Accordingly, expanding the STC’s role could help stabilize the southern front, constrain Houthi maneuverability and strengthen security around the Bab al-Mandab, which has become an integral component of Gulf maritime security.
The Iranian aircraft incident has also been cited as evidence of the government’s shortcomings. Kuwaiti academic Bilal al-Sabah argued that the significance of the episode lay not in the Houthi delegation’s visit to Tehran but in the government’s handling of the situation. He questioned why the authorities chose to strike the airport runway rather than prevent the aircraft from landing through other means, particularly when Saudi Arabia itself had recently dispatched an official delegation to Tehran for the same diplomatic purposes. According to this reading, the incident ultimately allowed the Houthis to escalate tensions after the aircraft later returned successfully, exposing weaknesses in the government’s ability to manage crises and project state authority.
The argument extends beyond criticism of the government’s performance to a broader reassessment of Saudi Arabia’s regional security priorities. Qatari academic Abdulla Bandar al-Etaibi contended that Houthi threats to disrupt Saudi-linked shipping should be understood less as an attempt to close the Bab al-Mandab than as a strategy to raise the costs of Saudi maritime commerce through what he describes as “selective deterrence.” Protecting this vital waterway, therefore, requires broader coordination with regional and local actors capable of contributing to maritime security — including, inevitably, the STC.
Indeed, cooperation with the STC offers Saudi Arabia tangible benefits. Closer coordination could help narrow differences with the United Arab Emirates and improve operational cooperation against the Houthis. Yet such cooperation would address only one of the kingdom’s two fundamental challenges in Yemen: continued Houthi resistance to Saudi policies. It would do little to resolve — and could even further complicate — the second: the absence of a unified state founded on a single source of political legitimacy.
State-building scholarship distinguishes between de facto control and de jure legitimacy. The former enables an armed group to govern territory, while the latter confers the authority to represent the state internationally, negotiate agreements and receive diplomatic recognition and external assistance. Conflicts across the Middle East demonstrate that military dominance alone rarely produces durable state institutions or international legitimacy. If de facto control were sufficient, Syria’s Ahmad al-Sharaa would not have sought to transform himself from the leader of an armed movement into the country’s president, nor would Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nehyan have united seven emirates into the United Arab Emirates, nor would King Abdulaziz (Ibn Saud) have devoted decades to unifying the territories that became modern Saudi Arabia. Despite the differences among these cases, all three demonstrate that the ultimate objective was political legitimacy, not merely armed control over territory.
In the case of Yemen, the distinction is equally important. Riyadh’s objective is not merely to cultivate an effective local partner, but to help preserve a Yemeni state whose legitimacy can endure beyond the battlefield. Consequently, any assessment of Saudi strategy must consider not only the military balance but also the political foundations of a sustainable settlement.
This distinction lies at the heart of the opposing argument. While supporters of greater engagement with the STC emphasize military effectiveness, defenders of continued support for the Yemeni government focus instead on the legal continuity of the Yemeni state. From this perspective, the government’s military shortcomings do not invalidate its legal standing, nor do they automatically elevate other domestic actors to the status of legitimate state representatives.
Saudi writer Hamood Abu Talib has expressed this view directly. He argued that Yemen’s internationally recognized government remains the country’s sole legitimate representative under international law, whereas the Houthis are an armed movement sustained by Iranian support. Weakening the government’s status or normalizing Houthi rule as a permanent reality, he wrote, would deepen Yemen’s fragmentation and strengthen Iranian influence rather than advance a lasting political settlement. From Abu Talib’s perspective, the government remains the central political framework in Yemen. Weakening that framework, therefore, risks exacerbating the broader challenge of preserving a unified Yemeni state.
Saudi commentator Ahmed Al Jumaiahe reached a similar conclusion through his interpretation of the Iranian aircraft incident. While many commentators viewed the episode as evidence of governmental weakness, Al Jumaiahe argued that it demonstrated the opposite from a legal perspective. The government’s objection to the flight underscored that it remains the only authority internationally entitled to regulate Yemen’s airspace and airports, even if its ability to enforce those rights on the ground remains constrained. The incident therefore highlighted the distinction between effective territorial control and internationally recognized sovereignty.
Indeed, despite its military influence in the south, the STC lacks international recognition as the representative of the Yemeni state, while its long-term political project — restoring an independent South Yemen — stands in direct tension with the principle of Yemeni unity that continues to underpin both Saudi policy and international resolutions on the conflict. Replacing the internationally recognized government with the STC would therefore risk creating new political and legal disputes that could ultimately outweigh any short-term military gains. Put simply, Saudi Arabia seeks a unified Yemeni state governed by a legitimate central authority capable of securing the kingdom’s borders, whereas the STC seeks secession from the very state Riyadh is trying to preserve.
This approach is reflected in the controversy surrounding the decision by Rashad al-Alimi, the chair of the PLC, to resume Yemeni oil exports and direct the revenues toward the national budget, public salaries and essential services. The STC firmly rejected the plan, arguing that distributing revenues across all regions would indirectly benefit Houthi-controlled areas and provide the movement with additional financial resources that could strengthen its military capabilities.
The dispute illustrates that tensions between the government and the STC extend well beyond military coordination against the Houthis. They reflect fundamentally different visions regarding state governance, resource management and Yemen’s postwar political order. A common enemy does not necessarily produce a common political project, making it difficult to regard the STC as a straightforward substitute for the internationally recognized government, despite their shared opposition to the Houthis.
These competing visions are further complicated by Yemen’s political landscape, where tribal, regional and personal loyalties often carry greater weight than formal institutions. Any meaningful shift in Saudi policy would therefore require not only cultivating new alliances but also managing relations with existing partners whose interests may diverge.
Saudi Arabia’s dilemma, therefore, is not — as some Gulf commentators suggest — to choose between Yemen’s government and the STC, or to marginalize one in favor of the other. Rather, it is to find pragmatic ways to engage with actors whose interests often diverge in order to benefit from both — preserving the political legitimacy embodied in the PLC while working closely with effective local partners such as the STC to broaden and consolidate the domestic anti-Houthi front. In this sense, cooperation with local allies should be driven by strategic necessity rather than by skepticism toward the government’s legitimacy.
The central question is no longer whether the STC has become the more effective military actor. Rather, it is whether military effectiveness alone is sufficient to build a stable political order, represent Yemen in future peace negotiations and provide lasting security for Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. Military capability can secure territory and confront adversaries, but it cannot by itself create political legitimacy — a central objective of Saudi policy in Yemen for more than a decade and one that Riyadh is unlikely to abandon lightly. For this reason, proponents of continued support for the government argue that expanding the STC’s role should complement, not replace, the internationally recognized government.
On the ground, and in response to the recent Houthi escalation, Saudi Arabia appears to be pursuing a pragmatic strategy by engaging with multiple Yemeni actors despite their competing agendas, so long as they share an interest in confronting the Houthi threat. The same pragmatism appears to be shaping Riyadh’s regional diplomacy. Recent days have witnessed signs of improving Saudi-Emirati relations following a period of tension over several regional issues, particularly Yemen. The UAE publicly condemned recent Houthi threats against Saudi Arabia and reaffirmed its support for the kingdom, while exchanges between senior officials in both countries signaled a renewed commitment to strategic coordination in addressing shared regional challenges, especially those posed by the Houthis and Iran.
Critics, including some Saudi opposition figures abroad, interpret this approach as evidence that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has abandoned Saudi Arabia’s original objectives in Yemen. A more plausible interpretation, however, is that Riyadh is pursuing a pragmatic strategy aimed at safeguarding its national security while preserving the political foundations of any future settlement.
Even so, improved Saudi-Emirati relations should not be interpreted as evidence that their differences over Yemen have disappeared. Their disagreement has never centered on whether the Houthis should be confronted, but rather on what political order should emerge after the war and which Yemeni actors should shape that outcome. Yet both remain pragmatic actors who recognize the need to confront the Houthis. Closer bilateral coordination may therefore facilitate broader engagement with the STC, but it does not, by itself, provide either the political or legal basis for abandoning the internationally recognized government.
Taken together, these developments suggest continuity rather than rupture in Saudi policy. Riyadh appears increasingly inclined to expand its network of local partners while preserving the internationally recognized government as the legal and diplomatic foundation of its Yemen strategy. This balancing approach reflects an adaptation to an increasingly fragmented Yemeni landscape rather than a fundamental strategic realignment.
The evidence examined in this article therefore points to a different conclusion than the one often presented in public debate. Rather than choosing between the internationally recognized government and the STC, Saudi Arabia appears to be redefining the roles of both. The STC is likely to assume a larger security and military role, particularly in southern Yemen and around the Bab al-Mandab, while the internationally recognized government remains indispensable as the legal and political framework for any future peace settlement.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE have recently experienced significant differences over several regional issues. Yet, ironically, the recent Houthi escalation against the kingdom has brought the two countries closer together. Under current conditions, expanding cooperation with the STC appears less a substitute for the PLC than a pragmatic adjustment within a broader Saudi strategy designed to accommodate Yemen’s increasingly fragmented political landscape while strengthening the domestic Yemeni front against the Houthis.
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