47 year old male, 192lbs, 28%bf by DEXA.

In the last 14 months of lifting, I've gained 12lbs of muscle and lost 1.5lbs of fat.
I naively conclude that I've been at a small caloric surplus and that let me gain muscle.

If I drop 20lbs or so of fat, I'll be around 20%, which would be healthier, and also awesome.

What are the odds that I could burn that fat off without losing much muscle by just making small cuts to carbs (mostly) and fats and trying to keep the activity level about the same? I'm not in any big hurry, but I also don't want to feel continually hungry for the rest of my life.

Alternately, if I did one of those mostly-only-protein crash diets to get it over with quicker, would I expect the fat to mostly stay off if I returned to previous eating habits afterwards (small caloric surplus and keep lifting)?