"Any group that belongs to the resistance does not have the right to interfere in politics at all," Mr. Sadr's statement said.
But reporters returning from another day of skirmishes said practically all of Sadr City appeared to be under the effective control of militiamen who hide down side streets and alleys, promising a potential bloodbath in the event of any full-scale challenge from the Americans and Iraq's new security forces.
Of all those encouraging Mr. Sadr to jump into the political arena, one of the most surprising is Mr. Chalabi.
All this puts Mr. Sadr in a position to amass more power, "if he can avoid being arrested or killed," said Juan R. Cole, a professor of Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan and an expert on Shiite Islam.
Muntazar al-Zaidi has become a bit of a hero – with all those rallies in Sadr city and Fallujah, with people marching around holding up their shoes like the crowd scenes in Monty Python's Life of Brian.
The prevalence of all other SADRs (drug hypersensitivity, injection site reaction, rash) were less than 0.005%.
"Moktada al-Sadr represents all the Iraqi people and he is delivered by God," said Akil Abd Munif Zwain, a hotel worker from Kufa, near Najaf, who was at the shrine.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki could easily be dumped, but he is likely to be replaced by another weak placeholder to avoid all-out conflict between Sadr and SCIRI, who wield the real power.
Yet for all the reservations about Mr. Sadr, many of the Iraqi leaders who have met with his representatives say they are impressed with their seriousness.
Fighters were stationed all over the square around Sadr's mosque, but we were told that Sadr had moved to Najaf, so we drove there, passing through roadblocks around the shrine of Imam Ali, where a Sadr aide was giving a press conference in a small courtroom in the alleyway leading to their office.
All that changed this week when Mr. Sadr activated his militia at the same time Falluja faced its biggest battle.
