confusing myself with these if statments

[AN-net]

ok if the user has set buddies and the user can not view the journal as of yet it will continue into this if statement but my question is:
what if the user has set buddies to view but $view is false will continue to the whocanview check or will it stop at buddies check because we have fulfilled the requirement?

PHP Code:

if($entry['journal_private'])
                {
                    if($bbuserinfo['userid'] != 0)
                    {
                        if(($bbuserinfo['userid'] == $entry['journalist_id']) OR ($bbuserinfo['usergroupid']==6))
                        {
                            $view_journal= true;
                        }
                        elseif($entry['journal_allowbuddies'] == 1 AND !$view)
                        {
                            if(isset($entry['jbuddylist']))
                            {
                                $buddies= explode(' ', $entry['jbuddylist']);
                                if(in_array($bbuserinfo['userid'], $buddies))
                                {
                                    $view_journal= true;
                                }
                                else
                                {
                                    $view_journal= false;
                                }
                            }
                        }
                        elseif(isset($entry['journal_whocanview']) AND !$view)
                        {
                            $wcv= explode(',', $entry['journal_whocanview']);
                            if(in_array($bbuserinfo['userid'], $wcv))
                            {
                                $view_journal= true;
                                $isbuddy= true;
                            }
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            $view_journal= false;
                        }
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        $view_journal= false;
                    }
                } 


also is there maybe another way i can check all of this stuff without these killer if statements?