Egypt's National Defense Council just approved active military deployment to Saudi Arabia to fight Yemen's Houthis, with parliament holding an emergency session to rubber-stamp it. This makes Egypt the first major Arab state to commit combat troops to the fight. And it means Egypt is now directly at war with whoever controls Bab el-Mandeb, the chokepoint between the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. Which puts the Suez Canal itself in play as a target. The US and Saudi Arabia finally got their Arab state cover. The Houthis now have an official reason to make shipping through Egypt's canal catastrophically expensive or impossible.