I think the point is that if the `argc <= 2` path is unreachable, then that means argc is always greater than 2, permitting the compiler to optimize the entire block to just:

  return printf("%s: we see %s", argv[0], argv[1]);

IOW, the conditional has been elided. But you're right in that the wording of the complaint doesn't match the example. The author presumably had in mind some of the more infamous NULL pointer-related optimizations, without spending the time to put together a properly analogous example.