All true, but you're mixing up the profiles. In the Gulf era, you'd first send in stealth to take out C&C, AAA and SAM sites and get started on parked air forces. Then you'd send the fighters and escorted bombers to own the airspace and finish destroying their air force. That was the first few days. Then you'd be clear to go in with ground forces, which needed plenty of CAS against all the old Russian tanks. Then you'd be in for as many years as your budget allowed of going door-to-door and cave-to-cave on foot with CAS against "insurgents".

The new profile is that last part, at least for our current problems. If we're going up against the Russians or Chinese, then we'll be back to F35's doing standoff at 100 miles.