Egypt faces problems with Houthi anti-shipping strikes and now piracy. Egypt might find it needs to use military force at the southern end of the Red Sea. American air strikes could pound down the Houthi strike capabilities. But it won't be enough to solve the problem in the long run.
America has hit the Iran-backed Houthi hard, in a series of strikes since March 15th. Apparently, Resolve Theater is over. We can't let Iran have a grip on oil supplies. But who deals with the Houthi ashore?
Egypt earns much needed money--$10 billion each year--from Suez Canal transit fees. That is in danger from missiles, drones, and pirates:
This forces ships, almost all of which are trying to use the Mediterranean Sea and Suez Canal, to take the longer and more expensive and time consuming route around the southern tip of Africa.
Some ships avoid or ignore the missiles and continue north to the Suez Canal. These ships discovered they faced another threat in that the Yemen rebels sent armed men in small boats to board these large cargo ships and force the crews to take them to towns on the nearby Somali coast known to be pirate friendly in the past.
If those threats aren't dealt with, ship construction may drift toward ships that can go around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid the Suez Canal-Red Sea-Horn of Africa route. How can shipping come back to Egypt--and pay transit fees--if the ships can't physically fit in the canal?
Perhaps mercenaries could do a better job of securing sea lines of communication. But while that may work against pirates and criminals, but missile-armed entities like the Houthi are a different manner.
Egypt once sent tens of thousands of troops to Yemen to wage war. Perhaps a funding alliance of shippers, insurance companies, Saudi Arabia (which exports oil through the Red Sea to get out of Iran's reach in the Strait of Hormuz), and Europeans (to avoid the strain of sending warships there) will pay for the mission ashore. Just because America shouldn't land troops doesn't mean nobody should. I recently noted this means to wage war could arise.
Or the West could cut the Gordian Knot that sustains the Houthi threat and ties together a number of our Middle East problems. Just saying.
UPDATE: More on the campaign. A campaign to destroy command and control and missile assets is far superior than sailing around as targets with only "retaliatory" (perhaps even "proportional"!) strikes in Resolve Theater. But lasting success requires prying Iran out of Yemen and helping someone--not America--on the ground defeat the Houthi. Sadly, we had that at one time. Until we decided to "end" that war.
UPDATE: Really, defeating the Houthi and prying them away from Iranian support is a natural objective for Gulf Arab states, Egypt, Israel, and NATO.
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NOTE: I made the image with Bing.
