branching ≠ if ≠ conditional

They're all related but can't just be used interchangeably. "if" is a reserved keyword to indicate a specific syntax is expected. It's not the semantics the author was trying to change, it's the syntax, and the overall point is that you aren't always required to use the specific "if" syntax to write code just like you're not required to use "while" to achieve looping.