Over 30 years ago, I remember watching TV footage of the first bombing raids over Iraq as the US-led Operation Desert Storm – the response to Saddam Hussein’s annexation of Kuwait – swung into action. I was 22, the same age as my own daughter now, and politically very naive. I had never seen scenes like it and had no real understanding of the region or the forces at play. I just knew that it looked damn scary, and it frightened me. Yesterday, I woke to a similar feeling of foreboding as footage of Israeli-American strikes on Iran flooded the...