Row-back

There was, however, a row back on the question of the use of force which, while not totally rejected as a course of action, will only be resorted to when all other possibilities have been exhausted.

After this piece appeared, Garton Ash's liberal credentials seemed genuinely to be on the table, and in London that afternoon his hands visibly shook as he began with an admirable and apparently sincere row-back (an act that this book reconfirms).