TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) took a "necessary step” to strike a U.S. base in Iraq last month in response to the assassination of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, said the spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday. "What we have done was one but a necessary step. It was in fact a slap in the face of the Americans,” Abbas Mousavi said in an interview with Croatian daily newspaper Vecernji list. "For years no one had the capability and courage to carry out such an action. We saw that Iran showed a severe reaction and hit one of the most important US bases in West Asia,” the Iranian official added.