I remember making comments about this around the time of the first Gulf War, way back in 1990. There was wave after wave of aerial bombings and I said to people in the lounge room "A young man is going to get home and find his parents have been killed, and dedicate his life to destroying the Empire. Just like in Star Wars".

I guess other people picked up on the idea that Tatooine and Iraq had some similarity.

However in a further case of reality imitating fiction, Tatooine was actually taken by Daesh.