Why Iran failed to be a regional or great power?

During their peak the Ottomans fought the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean, Italians, Spanish, Austrians, Persians, etc. A power which controls Belgrade, Alger and Meca is definitely global power.
And the peak of the Ottomans was passed by the 1730s. Belgrade, get on a boat from Constantinople and sail up the Danube. Alger, get on a ship from Constantinople and sail right there. Mecca, get on a horse in southern Anatolia and ride along the Mediterranean then Red Sea Coasts until you arrive at Jeddah. The Ottomans' realm was very easy to rule from Anatolia, there were no logistical feats equivalent to those needed for ruling north of the Caucasus or campaigning east of the Hindu-Kush.**

Which brings up probably the biggest point working against Iranian empires. The natural borders of a power based in the Iranian plateau are pretty bad* as far as forming big blobby empires goes. Deserts to the north and (depending on how you define the natural borders) west, large mountains to the east and north west, the Persian gulf in the south which is easily subject to blockade...

*Unless it's just the right time (as it was for Cyrus) and the Levant and North west of India are lacking powerful rivals, in which case you rule the centre of Eurasia and are free to expand as you see fit.

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**which is not to say the Ottoman Empire wasn't expansive or impressive, just that the location of its core region facilitated rather than limited its growth.
 
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One of Iran's biggest problems was its relatively low population. Of the three "Gunpowder Empires", it was the Safavids who had the lowest population by quite some margin. Most estimates I've seen for the Safavids at their height suggest a population of about 9-10 million, as opposed to an Ottoman Empire of around 30 million and a Mughal population that may have been as much as 150 million. Even France had a population of 21,000,000 in 1700.

Persia's low population was in part due to the devastation of much of her agriculture during the conquests of the Mongols and Timur. Much of Iran (Mazandaran and Gilan excepted) is far more ecologically unstable than Europe, and for agriculture to thrive she had a sophisticated system of irrigation. Much of these systems, particularly in Khorasan, were disrupted or destroyed by war, leaving the region unable to support the population that it once did.

Persia also had a surprisingly large nomadic population, which by some estimates may have been a third of the population. While a source of warriors for many Iranian rulers, the nomadic population also held land that could have been turned over to agriculture, at least in some instances. There were also tensions between the nomads and the settled peoples of Iran that may have prevented growth among the agricultural population.

Ultimately, Iran's resource base was too low to support a great empire. There were chances that Iran had to break out of this (Perhaps, if Nader Shah was able to conquer a lasting empire opening up new areas for expansion such as the Amu Darya ;)) but otherwise, Iran was never going to have the same clout that nations with larger resource bases did.
 
People forget that the core of Pre-Islamic Persian Empires wasn't Persia itself, but Mesopotamia.

With the exception of the Sassanids, who were the first empire in the region to be centred around Persia. They disliked Mesopotamian culture and the languages spoken in the region, instead lifting up a Persian language to prestige status (which it remains today).
 
With the exception of the Sassanids, who were the first empire in the region to be centred around Persia. They disliked Mesopotamian culture and the languages spoken in the region, instead lifting up a Persian language to prestige status (which it remains today).

Still their capital, Ctesiphon, and thus their core was located in densely-populated Mesopotamia.
 
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