You are right. During the UN's brazenly corrupt 'oil-for-food' program, Saddam was sending Iraqi crude oil through the Syrian-Iraqi pipeline at 50% below whatever the spot market prices happened to be, in turn Dr. Assad would label the oil 'Syrian' and resell it at full market price. A 'sweet' deal, which was brought to an abrupt end when American troops turned off the pipeline in the early days of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Putin is arming Assad as if it were the 'good old days' of Syria being a Soviet client state, which it still is under Putin's 'neo-Sovietism' for a profit.
Being that Damascus is the world's #1 terrorist capital, Israel may be forced to make the oldest continuous inhabited city - a pile of rubble.