The Pentagon is trying to put the finishing touches on a plan to use irregular warfare tactics to temper Iran’s military escalation in the Middle East, Al-Monitor has learned.

In a still-classified review ordered by former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, the Pentagon is aiming to find new ways to counter Iran’s lower-cost military operations, such as the shooting down of a $100 million US surveillance drone over the Gulf in June.

“Iran utilizes, principally through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Quds Force, an economy of force and capital model that prioritizes relatively low-cost operations,” said Mick Mulroy, the Pentagon’s top Middle East policy official. “We can do much more to combat this strategy by calibrating our responses and levying a counter-cost imposition strategy against Iran, whose pockets are much shallower than ours.”

In particular, Defense officials worry that Iran has tried to take actions that defy US response through nonstate military units below the level of outright warfare, such as IRGC proxies attaching limpet mines to Norwegian and Emirati ships in May, to avoid detection.