I mean that's just the problem isn't it? They require enormous structural reforms, but if that could be done the Safavids could lead Persia to greatness.
Well, that is true enough. However, seeing as the dynasty was founded by a drunkard religious fanatic (evidently he didn't care very much for the bit where Muhammad prohibited drinking fermented grape juice) who is on record as being one of the nastiest men in Persian history (and when that history includes Tamerlane, Agha Muhammad Qajar and Khosrau II, that is sayin' something) I doubt that the dynasty could build the institutions and traditions it needed to do better.
Actually, the real divergence between Europe and the Middle East began in the Middle Ages.
I am very dubious of this idea - to me it seems that any early divergence of this sort is more the product of cherry-picking data, rather than being the product of a real divergence before the mid 1700s.
The more I've read into the matter, the more it looks like the divergence is a later event, and mostly caused by the sudden collapse of populations across the Middle East, North Africa and the Indus-Ganges basin in the mid 1700s.
fasquardon