The linear stability of drift waves in a poloidally rotating tokamak plasma is considered. The derived dispersion relation features a peaking of the diamagnetic frequency which gives the drift modes an irreducible two-dimensional character. We then show that inverse Landau damping can be suppressed and even stabilized, if the flow's shear is strong. Even though the instability, excited by the Landau resonance, is stronger at a high velocity shear for positive rotation velocities, effects due to the rotation of the plasma can reverse the sign and induce damping of the two-dimensional drift modes. This stabilizing mechanism works only for positive rotation velocities. For negative rotation velocities, we show that only modes with high poloidal mode numbers are unstable.