You’d be forgiven for thinking that after eight months of sustained protest against his brutal regime, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad might show a bit of humility. Yet despite the remarkably persistent uprising against his regime and the deepening international isolation of his government, al-Assad continues to offer little besides defiance and a vicious crackdown. Since the protests began in March, the death toll is estimated to be over 3,500; the Arab League recently voted to suspend Syria and has threatened economic sanctions.

After another weekend of violence, al-Assad gave an interview to the Sunday Times in which he reasserted his claim that the government is only targeting “armed gangs” and terrorists, and that what’s happening in Syria is part of some sort of foreign conspiracy. Vowing that “Syria will not bow down” to the pressure, the president made it clear the regime is unlikely to change course. The fact that the vast majority of those killed were unarmed demonstrators gunned down during peaceful protests, or that so many Syrians continue to take to the streets to demand a genuine voice in the political process, doesn’t seem to matter to him.

Al-Assad’s arrogant tone and dismissive attitude toward those who oppose him­—and toward the very idea that there could be legitimate grievances against his regime—reminded me of another interview he gave, to the Wall Street Journal back on Jan. 31. Al-Assad told the Journal that the uprisings of the “Arab Spring” wouldn’t spread to his country, as Syria was “stable” because the regime was “closely linked to the beliefs of the people.”  I remember reading this interview in Damascus, where I spent the past year studying abroad (I left Syria on June 17), and thinking that the president was probably right; Syria wouldn’t experience an uprising the way Tunisia and Egypt had. Opposition activists I talked to described a “culture of fear” that prevented Syrians from speaking out against their government, let alone taking to the streets to protest against it. Given the regime’s history of merciless repression and the brutal police state it imposed on the country, the prospect of mass demonstrations across Syria seemed unlikely.

I was, of course, wrong, along with everyone else who predicted that Syrians would be too afraid or beaten down to rise up. President al-Assad was dead wrong as well, but he responded, not by addressing the sources of people’s frustration, but by violently suppressing the movement and driving some of them to violence, leading the regime to brand all the protestors as “criminals” and “terrorists,” and treat them in kind.

The reality is that people were fed up with the repression, the corruption, and the arrogance of the al-Assad regime. More than that, people are disgusted by the response to their legitimate demands for a say in how their country is run. What began as a few isolated protests asking for limited reforms and the release of political prisoners quickly turned into a nationwide uprising and demands for the overthrow of al-Assad. A number of people told me that while they initially opposed the protestors, the regime’s vicious response drove them into the opposition camp.

Yet the president and his supporters continue to claim that the demonstrators are puppets of some foreign conspiracy to destabilize Syria and subject the country to foreign domination.  This is patently absurd. The idea that any of the opposition activists or protestors I know are part of a western plot against Syria is laughable. To suggest that they are motivated by anything other than a sincere desire to build a better country is insulting, and al-Assad’s refusal to admit this is one reason the uprising is still going.