I would think it would Optimize away the else, would it even optimize away the if? How can I see what is happening?

No, it isn't optimised away:

C:\test>perl -MO=Deparse
if ($var || 2) {
     # do stuff here
 }
 else {
     # won't do stuff
 }
^Z
if ($var or 2) {
    ();
}
else {
    ();
}
- syntax OK
[download]

Why not? Because (for example) $var might be a tied variable; which means that just referencing it could have (required) side-effects. Else why would the programmer have coded it that way.

O=Deparse only deparses and doesn't actually compile the code, right?

How could it deparse it before it had been compiled?

This shows that if the compiler can optimise the code, the Deparse output will reflect that:

C:\test>perl -MO=Deparse
if( 2 ) {
}
else {
}
^Z
do {
    ()
};
- syntax OK
[download]