I think it's precedent because it's just a line after a block instead of before it. It certainly is a break from Python's "big outline" look.

> What if the while statement was part of the loop and could be placed arbitrarily?

If you're open to that, I had thought this was a bridge too far, but:

    do:
        body1()
        break if some_condition
        body2()
        continue if some_other_condition

Under that scheme, the semantics translate to:

    while True:
        do_body
        break

And, of course, the `break if` and `continue if` syntax would be general.